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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1139 ***
+
+FISHERMAN'S LUCK AND SOME OTHER UNCERTAIN THINGS
+
+by Henry van Dyke
+
+
+     "Now I conclude that not only in Physicke, but likewise in
+     sundry more certaine arts, fortune hath great share in
+     them."
+
+     M. DE MONTAIGNE: Divers Events.
+
+
+DEDICATION TO MY LADY GRAYGOWN
+
+
+Here is the basket; I bring it home to you. There are no great fish in
+it. But perhaps there may be one or two little ones which will be to
+your taste. And there are a few shining pebbles from the bed of the
+brook, and ferns from the cool, green woods, and wild flowers from the
+places that you remember. I would fain console you, if I could, for the
+hardship of having married an angler: a man who relapses into his mania
+with the return of every spring, and never sees a little river without
+wishing to fish in it. But after all, we have had good times together as
+we have followed the stream of life towards the sea. And we have passed
+through the dark days without losing heart, because we were comrades.
+So let this book tell you one thing that is certain. In all the life of
+your fisherman the best piece of luck is just YOU.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   I.  Fisherman's Luck
+
+  II.  The Thrilling Moment
+
+ III.  Talkability
+
+  IV.  A Wild Strawberry
+
+   V.  Lovers and Landscape
+
+  VI.  A Fatal Success
+
+ VII.  Fishing in Books
+
+VIII. A Norwegian Honeymoon
+
+  IX.  Who Owns the Mountains?
+
+   X.  A Lazy, Idle Brook
+
+  XI.  The Open Fire
+
+ XII.  A Slumber Song
+
+
+
+
+FISHERMAN'S LUCK
+
+
+Has it ever fallen in your way to notice the quality of the greetings
+that belong to certain occupations?
+
+There is something about these salutations in kind which is singularly
+taking and grateful to the ear. They are as much better than an ordinary
+"good day" or a flat "how are you?" as a folk-song of Scotland or the
+Tyrol is better than the futile love-ditty of the drawing-room. They
+have a spicy and rememberable flavour. They speak to the imagination and
+point the way to treasure-trove.
+
+There is a touch of dignity in them, too, for all they are so free and
+easy--the dignity of independence, the native spirit of one who takes
+for granted that his mode of living has a right to make its own forms of
+speech. I admire a man who does not hesitate to salute the world in the
+dialect of his calling.
+
+How salty and stimulating, for example, is the sailorman's hail of "Ship
+ahoy!" It is like a breeze laden with briny odours and a pleasant dash
+of spray. The miners in some parts of Germany have a good greeting for
+their dusky trade. They cry to one who is going down the shaft, "Gluck
+auf!" All the perils of an underground adventure and all the joys
+of seeing the sun again are compressed into a word. Even the trivial
+salutation which the telephone has lately created and claimed for its
+peculiar use--"Hello, hello"--seems to me to have a kind of fitness
+and fascination. It is like a thoroughbred bulldog, ugly enough to be
+attractive. There is a lively, concentrated, electric air about it. It
+makes courtesy wait upon dispatch, and reminds us that we live in an age
+when it is necessary to be wide awake.
+
+I have often wished that every human employment might evolve its own
+appropriate greeting. Some of them would be queer, no doubt; but
+at least they would be an improvement on the wearisome iteration of
+"Good-evening" and "Good-morning," and the monotonous inquiry, "How
+do you do?"--a question so meaningless that it seldom tarries for an
+answer. Under the new and more natural system of etiquette, when you
+passed the time of day with a man you would know his business, and the
+salutations of the market-place would be full of interest.
+
+As for my chosen pursuit of angling (which I follow with diligence when
+not interrupted by less important concerns), I rejoice with every true
+fisherman that it has a greeting all its own and of a most honourable
+antiquity. There is no written record of its origin. But it is quite
+certain that since the days after the Flood, when Deucalion
+
+
+     "Did first this art invent
+      Of angling, and his people taught the same,"
+
+
+two honest and good-natured anglers have never met each other by the way
+without crying out, "What luck?"
+
+Here, indeed, is an epitome of the gentle art. Here is the spirit of
+it embodied in a word and paying its respects to you with its native
+accent. Here you see its secret charms unconsciously disclosed. The
+attraction of angling for all the ages of man, from the cradle to the
+grave, lies in its uncertainty. 'Tis an affair of luck.
+
+No amount of preparation in the matter of rods and lines and hooks
+and lures and nets and creels can change its essential character.
+No excellence of skill in casting the delusive fly or adjusting the
+tempting bait upon the hook can make the result secure. You may reduce
+the chances, but you cannot eliminate them. There are a thousand points
+at which fortune may intervene. The state of the weather, the height of
+the water, the appetite of the fish, the presence or absence of other
+anglers--all these indeterminable elements enter into the reckoning of
+your success. There is no combination of stars in the firmament by which
+you can forecast the piscatorial future. When you go a-fishing, you just
+take your chances; you offer yourself as a candidate for anything that
+may be going; you try your luck.
+
+There are certain days that are favourites among anglers, who regard
+them as propitious for the sport. I know a man who believes that the
+fish always rise better on Sunday than on any other day in the week. He
+complains bitterly of this supposed fact, because his religious scruples
+will not allow him to take advantage of it. He confesses that he has
+sometimes thought seriously of joining the Seventh-Day Baptists.
+
+Among the Pennsylvania Dutch, in the Alleghany Mountains, I have found
+a curious tradition that Ascension Day is the luckiest in the year
+for fishing. On that morning the district school is apt to be thinly
+attended, and you must be on the stream very early if you do not wish to
+find wet footprints on the stones ahead of you.
+
+But in fact, all these superstitions about fortunate days are idle and
+presumptuous. If there were such days in the calendar, a kind and firm
+Providence would never permit the race of man to discover them. It
+would rob life of one of its principal attractions, and make fishing
+altogether too easy to be interesting.
+
+Fisherman's luck is so notorious that it has passed into a proverb.
+But the fault with that familiar saying is that it is too short and too
+narrow to cover half the variations of the angler's possible experience.
+For if his luck should be bad, there is no portion of his anatomy,
+from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, that may not be
+thoroughly wet. But if it should be good, he may receive an unearned
+blessing of abundance not only in his basket, but also in his head and
+his heart, his memory and his fancy. He may come home from some obscure,
+ill-named, lovely stream--some Dry Brook, or Southwest Branch of
+Smith's Run--with a creel full of trout, and a mind full of grateful
+recollections of flowers that seemed to bloom for his sake, and birds
+that sang a new, sweet, friendly message to his tired soul. He may climb
+down to "Tommy's Rock" below the cliffs at Newport (as I have done many
+a day with my lady Greygown), and, all unnoticed by the idle, weary
+promenaders in the path of fashion, haul in a basketful of blackfish,
+and at the same time look out across the shining sapphire waters and
+inherit a wondrous good fortune of dreams--
+
+
+     "Have glimpses that will make him less forlorn;
+      Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
+      Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
+
+
+But all this, you must remember, depends upon something secret and
+incalculable, something that we can neither command nor predict. It is
+an affair of gift, not of wages. Fish (and the other good things which
+are like sauce to the catching of them) cast no shadow before. Water is
+the emblem of instability. No one can tell what he shall draw out of
+it until he has taken in his line. Herein are found the true charm and
+profit of angling for all persons of a pure and childlike mind.
+
+Look at those two venerable gentlemen floating in a skiff upon the
+clear waters of Lake George. One of them is a successful statesman, an
+ex-President of the United States, a lawyer versed in all the curious
+eccentricities of the "lawless science of the law." The other is a
+learned doctor of medicine, able to give a name to all diseases from
+which men have imagined that they suffered, and to invent new ones
+for those who are tired of vulgar maladies. But all their learning is
+forgotten, their cares and controversies are laid aside, in "innocuous
+desuetude." The Summer School of Sociology is assembled. The Medical
+Congress is in session.
+
+But they care not--no, not so much as the value of a single live bait.
+The sun shines upon them with a fervent heat, but it irks them not.
+The rain descends, and the winds blow and beat upon them, but they
+are unmoved. They are securely anchored here in the lee of Sabbath-Day
+Point.
+
+What enchantment binds them to that inconsiderable spot? What magic
+fixes their eyes upon the point of a fishing-rod, as if it were the
+finger of destiny? It is the enchantment of uncertainty: the same
+natural magic that draws the little suburban boys in the spring of the
+year, with their strings and pin-hooks, around the shallow ponds where
+dace and redfins hide; the same irresistible charm that fixes a row of
+city gamins, like ragged and disreputable fish-crows, on the end of a
+pier where blear-eyed flounders sometimes lurk in the muddy water. Let
+the philosopher explain it as he will. Let the moralist reprehend it as
+he chooses. There is nothing that attracts human nature more powerfully
+than the sport of tempting the unknown with a fishing-line.
+
+Those ancient anglers have set out upon an exodus from the tedious realm
+of the definite, the fixed, the must-certainly-come-to-pass. They are on
+a holiday in the free country of peradventure. They do not know at this
+moment whether the next turn of Fortune's reel will bring up a perch or
+a pickerel, a sunfish or a black bass. It may be a hideous catfish or
+a squirming eel, or it may be a lake-trout, the grand prize in the Lake
+George lottery. There they sit, those gray-haired lads, full of hope,
+yet equally prepared for resignation; taking no thought for the morrow,
+and ready to make the best of to-day; harmless and happy players at the
+best of all games of chance.
+
+"In other words," I hear some severe and sour-complexioned reader say,
+"in plain language, they are a pair of old gamblers."
+
+Yes, if it pleases you to call honest men by a bad name. But they
+risk nothing that is not their own; and if they lose, they are not
+impoverished. They desire nothing that belongs to other men; and if
+they win, no one is robbed. If all gambling were like that, it would be
+difficult to see the harm in it. Indeed, a daring moralist might even
+assert, and prove by argument, that so innocent a delight in the taking
+of chances is an aid to virtue.
+
+Do you remember Martin Luther's reasoning on the subject of "excellent
+large pike"? He maintains that God would never have created them so good
+to the taste, if He had not meant them to be eaten. And for the same
+reason I conclude that this world would never have been left so full of
+uncertainties, nor human nature framed so as to find a peculiar joy and
+exhilaration in meeting them bravely and cheerfully, if it had not been
+divinely intended that most of our amusement and much of our education
+should come from this source.
+
+"Chance" is a disreputable word, I know. It is supposed by many pious
+persons to be improper and almost blasphemous to use it. But I am not
+one of those who share this verbal prejudice. I am inclined rather to
+believe that it is a good word to which a bad reputation has been
+given. I feel grateful to that admirable "psychologist who writes like a
+novelist," Mr. William James, for his brilliant defence of it. For what
+does it mean, after all, but that some things happen in a certain way
+which might have happened in another way? Where is the immorality, the
+irreverence, the atheism in such a supposition? Certainly God must be
+competent to govern a world in which there are possibilities of various
+kinds, just as well as one in which every event is inevitably determined
+beforehand. St. Peter and the other fishermen-disciples on the Lake
+of Galilee were perfectly free to cast their net on either side of the
+ship. So far as they could see, so far as any one could see, it was a
+matter of chance where they chose to cast it. But it was not until they
+let it down, at the Master's word, on the right side that they had good
+luck. And not the least element of their joy in the draft of fishes was
+that it brought a change of fortune.
+
+Leave the metaphysics of the question on the table for the present. As
+a matter of fact, it is plain that our human nature is adapted to
+conditions variable, undetermined, and hidden from our view. We are
+not fitted to live in a world where a + b always equals c, and there is
+nothing more to follow. The interest of life's equation arrives with the
+appearance of x, the unknown quantity. A settled, unchangeable, clearly
+foreseeable order of things does not suit our constitution. It tends to
+melancholy and a fatty heart. Creatures of habit we are undoubtedly; but
+it is one of our most fixed habits to be fond of variety. The man who
+is never surprised does not know the taste of happiness, and unless the
+unexpected sometimes happens to us, we are most grievously disappointed.
+
+Much of the tediousness of highly civilized life comes from its
+smoothness and regularity. To-day is like yesterday, and we think that
+we can predict to-morrow. Of course we cannot really do so. The
+chances are still there. But we have covered them up so deeply with
+the artificialities of life that we lose sight of them. It seems as if
+everything in our neat little world were arranged, and provided for,
+and reasonably sure to come to pass. The best way of escape from this
+TAEDIUM VITAE is through a recreation like angling, not only because it
+is so evidently a matter of luck, but also because it tempts us into a
+wilder, freer life. It leads almost inevitably to camping out, which is
+a wholesome and sanitary imprudence.
+
+It is curious and pleasant, to my apprehension, to observe how many
+people in New England, one of whose States is called "the land of Steady
+Habits," are sensible of the joy of changing them,--out of doors. These
+good folk turn out from their comfortable farm-houses and their snug
+suburban cottages to go a-gypsying for a fortnight among the mountains
+or beside the sea. You see their white tents gleaming from the
+pine-groves around the little lakes, and catch glimpses of their
+bathing-clothes drying in the sun on the wiry grass that fringes the
+sand-dunes. Happy fugitives from the bondage of routine! They have found
+out that a long journey is not necessary to a good vacation. You may
+reach the Forest of Arden in a buckboard. The Fortunate Isles are within
+sailing distance in a dory. And a voyage on the river Pactolus is open
+to any one who can paddle a canoe.
+
+I was talking--or rather listening--with a barber, the other day, in
+the sleepy old town of Rivermouth. He told me, in one of those easy
+confidences which seem to make the razor run more smoothly, that it had
+been the custom of his family, for some twenty years past, to forsake
+their commodious dwelling on Anchor Street every summer, and emigrate
+six miles, in a wagon to Wallis Sands, where they spent the month of
+August very merrily under canvas. Here was a sensible household for
+you! They did not feel bound to waste a year's income on a four weeks'
+holiday. They were not of those foolish folk who run across the sea,
+carefully carrying with them the same tiresome mind that worried them
+at home. They got a change of air by making an alteration of life. They
+escaped from the land of Egypt by stepping out into the wilderness and
+going a-fishing.
+
+The people who always live in houses, and sleep on beds, and walk on
+pavements, and buy their food from butchers and bakers and grocers, are
+not the most blessed inhabitants of this wide and various earth. The
+circumstances of their existence are too mathematical and secure
+for perfect contentment. They live at second or third hand. They are
+boarders in the world. Everything is done for them by somebody else.
+
+It is almost impossible for anything very interesting to happen to them.
+They must get their excitement out of the newspapers, reading of the
+hairbreadth escapes and moving accidents that befall people in real
+life. What do these tame ducks really know of the adventure of living?
+If the weather is bad, they are snugly housed. If it is cold, there is
+a furnace in the cellar. If they are hungry, the shops are near at hand.
+It is all as dull, flat, stale, and unprofitable as adding up a column
+of figures. They might as well be brought up in an incubator.
+
+But when man abides in tents, after the manner of the early patriarchs,
+the face of the world is renewed. The vagaries of the clouds become
+significant. You watch the sky with a lover's look, eager to know
+whether it will smile or frown. When you lie at night upon your bed of
+boughs and hear the rain pattering on the canvas close above your head,
+you wonder whether it is a long storm or only a shower.
+
+The rising wind shakes the tent-flaps. Are the pegs well driven down and
+the cords firmly fastened? You fall asleep again and wake later, to
+hear the rain drumming still more loudly on the tight cloth, and the
+big breeze snoring through the forest, and the waves plunging along
+the beach. A stormy day? Well, you must cut plenty of wood and keep the
+camp-fire glowing, for it will be hard to start it up again, if you
+let it get too low. There is little use in fishing or hunting in such a
+storm. But there is plenty to do in the camp: guns to be cleaned, tackle
+to be put in order, clothes to be mended, a good story of adventure to
+be read, a belated letter to be written to some poor wretch in a summer
+hotel, a game of hearts or cribbage to be played, or a hunting-trip to
+be planned for the return of fair weather. The tent is perfectly dry. A
+little trench dug around it carries off the surplus water, and luckily
+it is pitched with the side to the lake, so that you get the pleasant
+heat of the fire without the unendurable smoke. Cooking in the rain has
+its disadvantages. But how good the supper tastes when it is served up
+on a tin plate, with an empty box for a table and a roll of blankets at
+the foot of the bed for a seat!
+
+A day, two days, three days, the storm may continue, according to your
+luck. I have been out in the woods for a fortnight without a drop of
+rain or a sign of dust. Again, I have tented on the shore of a big lake
+for a week, waiting for an obstinate tempest to pass by.
+
+Look now, just at nightfall: is there not a little lifting and breaking
+of the clouds in the west, a little shifting of the wind toward a
+better quarter? You go to bed with cheerful hopes. A dozen times in the
+darkness you are half awake, and listening drowsily to the sounds of the
+storm. Are they waxing or waning? Is that louder pattering a new burst
+of rain, or is it only the plumping of the big drops as they are shaken
+from the trees? See, the dawn has come, and the gray light glimmers
+through the canvas. In a little while you will know your fate.
+
+Look! There is a patch of bright yellow radiance on the peak of the
+tent. The shadow of a leaf dances over it. The sun must be shining. Good
+luck! and up with you, for it is a glorious morning.
+
+The woods are glistening as fresh and fair as if they had been
+new-created overnight. The water sparkles, and tiny waves are dancing
+and splashing all along the shore. Scarlet berries of the mountain-ash
+hang around the lake. A pair of kingfishers dart back and forth across
+the bay, in flashes of living blue. A black eagle swings silently around
+his circle, far up in the cloudless sky. The air is full of pleasant
+sounds, but there is no noise. The world is full of joyful life, but
+there is no crowd and no confusion. There is no factory chimney to
+darken the day with its smoke, no trolley-car to split the silence with
+its shriek and smite the indignant ear with the clanging of its impudent
+bell. No lumberman's axe has robbed the encircling forests of their
+glory of great trees. No fires have swept over the hills and left behind
+them the desolation of a bristly landscape. All is fresh and sweet, calm
+and clear and bright.
+
+'Twas rather a rude jest of Nature, that tempest of yesterday. But
+if you have taken it in good part, you are all the more ready for her
+caressing mood to-day. And now you must be off to get your dinner--not
+to order it at a shop, but to look for it in the woods and waters. You
+are ready to do your best with rod or gun. You will use all the skill
+you have as hunter or fisherman. But what you shall find, and
+whether you shall subsist on bacon and biscuit, or feast on trout and
+partridges, is, after all, a matter of luck.
+
+I profess that it appears to me not only pleasant, but also salutary, to
+be in this condition. It brings us home to the plain realities of life;
+it teaches us that a man ought to work before he eats; it reminds us
+that, after he has done all he can, he must still rely upon a mysterious
+bounty for his daily bread. It says to us, in homely and familiar words,
+that life was meant to be uncertain, that no man can tell what a day
+will bring forth, and that it is the part of wisdom to be prepared for
+disappointments and grateful for all kinds of small mercies.
+
+There is a story in that fragrant book, THE LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST.
+FRANCIS, which I wish to transcribe here, without tying a moral to it,
+lest any one should accuse me of preaching.
+
+
+"Hence [says the quaint old chronicler], having assigned to his
+companions the other parts of the world, St. Francis, taking Brother
+Maximus as his comrade, set forth toward the province of France. And
+coming one day to a certain town, and being very hungry, they begged
+their bread as they went, according to the rule of their order, for the
+love of God. And St. Francis went through one quarter of the town, and
+Brother Maximus through another. But forasmuch as St. Francis was a man
+mean and low of stature, and hence was reputed a vile beggar by such as
+knew him not, he only received a few scanty crusts and mouthfuls of dry
+bread. But to Brother Maximus, who was large and well favoured, were
+given good pieces and big, and an abundance of bread, yea, whole loaves.
+Having thus begged, they met together without the town to eat, at a
+place where there was a clear spring and a fair large stone, upon which
+each spread forth the gifts that he had received. And St. Francis,
+seeing that the pieces of bread begged by Brother Maximus were bigger
+and better than his own, rejoiced greatly, saying, 'Oh, Brother Maximus,
+we are not worthy of so great a treasure.' As he repeated these words
+many times, Brother Maximus made answer: 'Father, how can you talk of
+treasures when there is such great poverty and such lack of all things
+needful? Here is neither napkin nor knife, neither board nor trencher,
+neither house nor table, neither man-servant nor maid-servant.' St.
+Francis replied: 'And this is what I reckon a great treasure, where
+naught is made ready by human industry, but all that is here is prepared
+by Divine Providence, as is plainly set forth in the bread which we have
+begged, in the table of fair stone, and in the spring of clear water.
+And therefore I would that we should pray to God that He teach us with
+all our hearts to love the treasure of holy poverty, which is so noble a
+thing, and whose servant is God the Lord.'"
+
+
+I know of but one fairer description of a repast in the open air; and
+that is where we are told how certain poor fishermen, coming in very
+weary after a night of toil (and one of them very wet after swimming
+ashore), found their Master standing on the bank of the lake waiting for
+them. But it seems that he must have been busy in their behalf while he
+was waiting; for there was a bright fire of coals burning on the shore,
+and a goodly fish broiling thereon, and bread to eat with it. And when
+the Master had asked them about their fishing, he said, "Come, now, and
+get your breakfast." So they sat down around the fire, and with his own
+hands he served them with the bread and the fish.
+
+Of all the banquets that have ever been given upon earth, that is the
+one in which I would rather have had a share.
+
+But it is now time that we should return to our fishing. And let
+us observe with gratitude that almost all of the pleasures that are
+connected with this pursuit--its accompaniments and variations, which
+run along with the tune and weave an embroidery of delight around
+it--have an accidental and gratuitous quality about them. They are not
+to be counted upon beforehand. They are like something that is thrown
+into a purchase by a generous and open-handed dealer, to make us pleased
+with our bargain and inclined to come back to the same shop.
+
+If I knew, for example, before setting out for a day on the brook,
+precisely what birds I should see, and what pretty little scenes in the
+drama of woodland life were to be enacted before my eyes, the expedition
+would lose more than half its charm. But, in fact, it is almost entirely
+a matter of luck, and that is why it never grows tiresome.
+
+The ornithologist knows pretty well where to look for the birds, and
+he goes directly to the places where he can find them, and proceeds to
+study them intelligently and systematically. But the angler who idles
+down the stream takes them as they come, and all his observations have a
+flavour of surprise in them.
+
+He hears a familiar song,--one that he has often heard at a distance,
+but never identified,--a loud, cheery, rustic cadence sounding from
+a low pine-tree close beside him. He looks up carefully through the
+needles and discovers a hooded warbler, a tiny, restless creature,
+dressed in green and yellow, with two white feathers in its tail, like
+the ends of a sash, and a glossy little black bonnet drawn closely about
+its golden head. He will never forget that song again. It will make the
+woods seem homelike to him, many a time, as he hears it ringing
+through the afternoon, like the call of a small country girl playing at
+hide-and-seek: "See ME; here I BE."
+
+Another day he sits down on a mossy log beside a cold, trickling spring
+to eat his lunch. It has been a barren day for birds. Perhaps he has
+fallen into the fault of pursuing his sport too intensely, and tramped
+along the stream looking for nothing but fish. Perhaps this part of the
+grove has really been deserted by its feathered inhabitants, scared
+away by a prowling hawk or driven out by nest-hunters. But now, without
+notice, the luck changes. A surprise-party of redstarts breaks into full
+play around him. All through the dark-green shadow of the hemlocks
+they flash like little candles--CANDELITAS, the Cubans call them. Their
+brilliant markings of orange and black, and their fluttering, airy,
+graceful movements, make them most welcome visitors. There is no bird in
+the bush easier to recognize or pleasanter to watch. They run along
+the branches and dart and tumble through the air in fearless chase of
+invisible flies and moths. All the time they keep unfolding and furling
+their rounded tails, spreading them out and waving them and closing
+them suddenly, just as the Cuban girls manage their fans. In fact, the
+redstarts are the tiny fantail pigeons of the forest.
+
+There are other things about the birds, besides their musical talents
+and their good looks, that the fisherman has a chance to observe on his
+lucky days. He may sea something of their courage and their devotion to
+their young.
+
+I suppose a bird is the bravest creature that lives, in spite of its
+natural timidity. From which we may learn that true courage is not
+incompatible with nervousness, and that heroism does not mean the
+absence of fear, but the conquest of it. Who does not remember the first
+time that he ever came upon a hen-partridge with her brood, as he was
+strolling through the woods in June? How splendidly the old bird forgets
+herself in her efforts to defend and hide her young!
+
+Smaller birds are no less daring. One evening last summer I was walking
+up the Ristigouche from Camp Harmony to fish for salmon at Mowett's
+Rock, where my canoe was waiting for me. As I stepped out from a thicket
+on to the shingly bank of the river, a spotted sandpiper teetered along
+before me, followed by three young ones. Frightened at first, the mother
+flew out a few feet over the water. But the piperlings could not fly,
+having no feathers; and they crept under a crooked log. I rolled the log
+over very gently and took one of the cowering creatures into my hand--a
+tiny, palpitating scrap of life, covered with soft gray down, and
+peeping shrilly, like a Liliputian chicken. And now the mother was
+transformed. Her fear was changed into fury. She was a bully, a fighter,
+an Amazon in feathers. She flew at me with loud cries, dashing herself
+almost into my face. I was a tyrant, a robber, a kidnapper, and she
+called heaven to witness that she would never give up her offspring
+without a struggle. Then she changed her tactics and appealed to my
+baser passions. She fell to the ground and fluttered around me as if her
+wing were broken. "Look!" she seemed to say, "I am bigger than that poor
+little baby. If you must eat something, eat me! My wing is lame. I can't
+fly. You can easily catch me. Let that little bird go!" And so I
+did; and the whole family disappeared in the bushes as if by magic. I
+wondered whether the mother was saying to herself, after the manner of
+her sex, that men are stupid things, after all, and no match for the
+cleverness of a female who stoops to deception in a righteous cause.
+
+Now, that trivial experience was what I call a piece of good luck--for
+me, and, in the event, for the sandpiper. But it is doubtful whether it
+would be quite so fresh and pleasant in the remembrance, if it had not
+also fallen to my lot to take two uncommonly good salmon on that same
+evening, in a dry season.
+
+Never believe a fisherman when he tells you that he does not care about
+the fish he catches. He may say that he angles only for the pleasure of
+being out-of-doors, and that he is just as well contented when he takes
+nothing as when he makes a good catch. He may think so, but it is not
+true. He is not telling a deliberate falsehood. He is only assuming an
+unconscious pose, and indulging in a delicate bit of self-flattery. Even
+if it were true, it would not be at all to his credit.
+
+Watch him on that lucky day when he comes home with a full basket of
+trout on his shoulder, or a quartette of silver salmon covered with
+green branches in the bottom of the canoe. His face is broader than it
+was when he went out, and there is a sparkle of triumph in his eye.
+"It is naught, it is naught," he says, in modest depreciation of his
+triumph. But you shall see that he lingers fondly about the place
+where the fish are displayed upon the grass, and does not fail to look
+carefully at the scales when they are weighed, and has an attentive ear
+for the comments of admiring spectators. You shall find, moreover, that
+he is not unwilling to narrate the story of the capture--how the big
+fish rose short, four times, to four different flies, and finally took a
+small Black Dose, and played all over the pool, and ran down a terribly
+stiff rapid to the next pool below, and sulked for twenty minutes, and
+had to be stirred up with stones, and made such a long fight that, when
+he came in at last, the hold of the hook was almost worn through, and it
+fell out of his mouth as he touched the shore. Listen to this tale as
+it is told, with endless variations, by every man who has brought home
+a fine fish, and you will perceive that the fisherman does care for his
+luck, after all.
+
+And why not? I am no friend to the people who receive the bounties of
+Providence without visible gratitude. When the sixpence falls into your
+hat, you may laugh. When the messenger of an unexpected blessing takes
+you by the hand and lifts you up and bids you walk, you may leap and run
+and sing for joy, even as the lame man, whom St. Peter healed, skipped
+piously and rejoiced aloud as he passed through the Beautiful Gate of
+the Temple. There is no virtue in solemn indifference. Joy is just as
+much a duty as beneficence is. Thankfulness is the other side of mercy.
+
+When you have good luck in anything, you ought to be glad. Indeed, if
+you are not glad, you are not really lucky.
+
+But boasting and self-glorification I would have excluded, and most
+of all from the behaviour of the angler. He, more than other men, is
+dependent for his success upon the favour of an unseen benefactor. Let
+his skill and industry be never so great, he can do nothing unless LA
+BONNE CHANCE comes to him.
+
+I was once fishing on a fair little river, the P'tit Saguenay, with two
+excellent anglers and pleasant companions, H. E. G---- and C. S. D----.
+They had done all that was humanly possible to secure good sport. The
+stream had been well preserved. They had boxes full of beautiful flies,
+and casting-lines imported from England, and a rod for every fish in the
+river. But the weather was "dour," and the water "drumly," and every day
+the lumbermen sent a "drive" of ten thousand spruce logs rushing down
+the flooded stream. For three days we had not seen a salmon, and on the
+fourth, despairing, we went down to angle for sea-trout in the tide of
+the greater Saguenay. There, in the salt water, where men say the salmon
+never take the fly, H. E. G----, fishing with a small trout-rod, a poor,
+short line, and an ancient red ibis of the common kind, rose and hooked
+a lordly salmon of at least five-and-thirty pounds. Was not this pure
+luck?
+
+Pride is surely the most unbecoming of all vices in a fisherman. For
+though intelligence and practice and patience and genius, and many
+other noble things which modesty forbids him to mention, enter into his
+pastime, so that it is, as Izaak Walton has firmly maintained, an art;
+yet, because fortune still plays a controlling hand in the game, its net
+results should never be spoken of with a haughty and vain spirit. Let
+not the angler imitate Timoleon, who boasted of his luck and lost it. It
+is tempting Providence to print the record of your wonderful catches in
+the sporting newspapers; or at least, if it must be done, there should
+stand at the head of the column some humble, thankful motto, like "NON
+NOBIS, DOMINE." Even Father Izaak, when he has a fish on his line, says,
+with a due sense of human limitations, "There is a trout now, and a good
+one too, IF I CAN BUT HOLD HIM!"
+
+This reminds me that we left H. E. G----, a few sentences back, playing
+his unexpected salmon, on a trout-rod, in the Saguenay. Four times that
+great fish leaped into the air; twice he suffered the pliant reed to
+guide him toward the shore, and twice ran out again to deeper water.
+Then his spirit awoke within him: he bent the rod like a willow wand,
+dashed toward the middle of the river, broke the line as if it had been
+pack-thread, and sailed triumphantly away to join the white porpoises
+that were tumbling in the tide. "WHE-E-EW," they said, "WHE-E-EW!
+PSHA-A-AW!" blowing out their breath in long, soft sighs as they rolled
+about like huge snowballs in the black water. But what did H. E. G----
+say? He sat him quietly down upon a rock and reeled in the remnant
+of his line, uttering these remarkable and Christian words: "Those
+porpoises," said he, "describe the situation rather mildly. But it was
+good fun while it lasted."
+
+Again I remembered a saying of Walton: "Well, Scholar, you must endure
+worse luck sometimes, or you will never make a good angler."
+
+Or a good man, either, I am sure. For he who knows only how to enjoy,
+and not to endure, is ill-fitted to go down the stream of life through
+such a world as this.
+
+I would not have you to suppose, gentle reader, that in discoursing of
+fisherman's luck I have in mind only those things which may be taken
+with a hook. It is a parable of human experience. I have been thinking,
+for instance, of Walton's life as well as of his angling: of the losses
+and sufferings that he, the firm Royalist, endured when the Commonwealth
+men came marching into London town; of the consoling days that were
+granted to him, in troublous times, on the banks of the Lea and the Dove
+and the New River, and the good friends that he made there, with whom
+he took sweet counsel in adversity; of the little children who played
+in his house for a few years, and then were called away into the silent
+land where he could hear their voices no longer. I was thinking how
+quietly and peaceably he lived through it all, not complaining nor
+desponding, but trying to do his work well, whether he was keeping a
+shop or writing hooks, and seeking to prove himself an honest man and
+a cheerful companion, and never scorning to take with a thankful heart
+such small comforts and recreations as came to him.
+
+It is a plain, homely, old-fashioned meditation, reader, but not
+unprofitable. When I talk to you of fisherman's luck, I do not forget
+that there are deeper things behind it. I remember that what we call our
+fortunes, good or ill, are but the wise dealings and distributions of a
+Wisdom higher, and a Kindness greater, than our own. And I suppose that
+their meaning is that we should learn, by all the uncertainties of our
+life, even the smallest, how to be brave and steady and temperate and
+hopeful, whatever comes, because we believe that behind it all there
+lies a purpose of good, and over it all there watches a providence of
+blessing.
+
+In the school of life many branches of knowledge are taught. But the
+only philosophy that amounts to anything, after all, is just the secret
+of making friends with our luck.
+
+
+
+
+THE THRILLING MOMENT
+
+
+     "In angling, as in all other recreations into which
+     excitement enters, we have to be on our guard, so that we
+     can at any moment throw a weight of self-control into the
+     scale against misfortune; and happily we can study to some
+     purpose, both to increase our pleasure in success and to
+     lessen our distress caused by what goes ill.  It is not only
+     in cases of great disasters, however, that the angler needs
+     self-control.  He is perpetually called upon to use it to
+     withstand small exasperations."
+
+     --SIR EDWARD GREY: Fly-Fishing.
+
+
+Every moment of life, I suppose, is more or less of a turning-point.
+Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, thicker than gnats
+at sundown. We walk through a cloud of chances, and if we were always
+conscious of them they would worry us almost to death.
+
+But happily our sense of uncertainty is soothed and cushioned by habit,
+so that we can live comfortably with it. Only now and then, by way of
+special excitement, it starts up wide awake. We perceive how delicately
+our fortune is poised and balanced on the pivot of a single incident. We
+get a peep at the oscillating needle, and, because we have happened to
+see it tremble, we call our experience a crisis.
+
+The meditative angler is not exempt from these sensational periods.
+There are times when all the uncertainty of his chosen pursuit seems
+to condense itself into one big chance, and stand out before him like
+a salmon on the top wave of a rapid. He sees that his luck hangs by a
+single strand, and he cannot tell whether it will hold or break. This is
+his thrilling moment, and he never forgets it.
+
+Mine came to me in the autumn of 1894, on the banks of the
+Unpronounceable River, in the Province of Quebec. It was the last day,
+of the open season for ouananiche, and we had set our hearts on catching
+some good fish to take home with us. We walked up from the mouth of
+the river, four preposterously long and rough miles, to the famous
+fishing-pool, "LA PLACE DE PECHE A BOIVIN." It was a noble day for
+walking; the air was clear and crisp, and all the hills around us
+were glowing with the crimson foliage of those little bushes which
+God created to make burned lands look beautiful. The trail ended in
+a precipitous gully, down which we scrambled with high hopes, and
+fishing-rods unbroken, only to find that the river was in a condition
+which made angling absurd if not impossible.
+
+There must have been a cloud-burst among the mountains, for the water
+was coming down in flood. The stream was bank-full, gurgling and eddying
+out among the bushes, and rushing over the shoal where the fish used to
+lie, in a brown torrent ten feet deep. Our last day with the land-locked
+salmon seemed destined to be a failure, and we must wait eight
+months before we could have another. There were three of us in the
+disappointment, and we shared it according to our temperaments.
+
+Paul virtuously resolved not to give up while there was a chance left,
+and wandered down-stream to look for an eddy where he might pick up a
+small fish. Ferdinand, our guide, resigned himself without a sigh to
+the consolation of eating blueberries, which he always did with great
+cheerfulness. But I, being more cast down than either of my comrades,
+sought out a convenient seat among the rocks, and, adapting my anatomy
+as well as possible to the irregularities of nature's upholstery, pulled
+from my pocket AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE DALE, and settled down
+to read myself into a Christian frame of mind.
+
+Before beginning, my eyes roved sadly over the pool once more. It
+was but a casual glance. It lasted only for an instant. But in that
+fortunate fragment of time I distinctly saw the broad tail of a big
+ouananiche rise and disappear in the swift water at the very head of the
+pool.
+
+Immediately the whole aspect of affairs was changed. Despondency
+vanished, and the river glittered with the beams of rising hope.
+
+Such is the absurd disposition of some anglers. They never see a fish
+without believing that they can catch him; but if they see no fish, they
+are inclined to think that the river is empty and the world hollow.
+
+I said nothing to my companions. It would have been unkind to disturb
+them with expectations which might never be realized. My immediate duty
+was to get within casting distance of that salmon as soon as possible.
+
+The way along the shore of the pool was difficult. The bank was very
+steep, and the rocks by the river's edge were broken and glibbery.
+Presently I came to a sheer wall of stone, perhaps thirty feet high,
+rising directly from the deep water.
+
+There was a tiny ledge or crevice running part of the way across the
+face of this wall, and by this four-inch path I edged along, holding
+my rod in one hand, and clinging affectionately with the other to such
+clumps of grass and little bushes as I could find. There was one
+small huckleberry plant to which I had a particular attachment. It was
+fortunately a firm little bush, and as I held fast to it I remembered
+Tennyson's poem which begins
+
+
+     "Flower in the crannied wall,"
+
+
+and reflected that if I should succeed in plucking out this flower,
+"root and all," it would probably result in an even greater increase of
+knowledge than the poet contemplated.
+
+The ledge in the rock now came to an end. But below me in the pool there
+was a sunken reef; and on this reef a long log had caught, with one
+end sticking out of the water, within jumping distance. It was the only
+chance. To go back would have been dangerous. An angler with a large
+family dependent upon him for support has no right to incur unnecessary
+perils.
+
+Besides, the fish was waiting for me at the upper end of the pool!
+
+So I jumped; landed on the end of the log; felt it settle slowly down;
+ran along it like a small boy on a seesaw, and leaped off into shallow
+water just as the log rolled from the ledge and lunged out into the
+stream.
+
+It went wallowing through the pool and down the rapid like a playful
+hippopotamus. I watched it with interest and congratulated myself that
+I was no longer embarked upon it. On that craft a voyage down the
+Unpronounceable River would have been short but far from merry. The "all
+ashore" bell was not rung early enough. I just got off, with not half a
+second to spare.
+
+But now all was well, for I was within reach of the fish. A little
+scrambling over the rocks brought me to a point where I could easily
+cast over him. He was lying in a swift, smooth, narrow channel between
+two large stones. It was a snug resting-place, and no doubt he would
+remain there for some time. So I took out my fly-book and prepared to
+angle for him according to the approved rules of the art.
+
+Nothing is more foolish in sport than the habit of precipitation.
+And yet it is a fault to which I am singularly subject. As a boy, in
+Brooklyn, I never came in sight of the Capitoline Skating Pond, after a
+long ride in the horse-cars, without breaking into a run along the board
+walk, buckling on my skates in a furious hurry, and flinging myself
+impetuously upon the ice, as if I feared that it would melt away before
+I could reach it. Now this, I confess, is a grievous defect, which
+advancing years have not entirely cured; and I found it necessary to
+take myself firmly, as it were, by the mental coat-collar, and
+resolve not to spoil the chance of catching the only ouananiche in the
+Unpronounceable River by undue haste in fishing for him.
+
+I carefully tested a brand-new leader, and attached it to the line with
+great deliberation and the proper knot. Then I gave my whole mind to the
+important question of a wise selection of flies.
+
+It is astonishing how much time and mental anxiety a man can spend on
+an apparently simple question like this. When you are buying flies in a
+shop it seems as if you never had half enough. You keep on picking out
+a half-dozen of each new variety as fast as the enticing salesman shows
+them to you. You stroll through the streets of Montreal or Quebec and
+drop in at every fishing-tackle dealer's to see whether you can find a
+few more good flies. Then, when you come to look over your collection at
+the critical moment on the bank of a stream, it seems as if you had ten
+times too many. And, spite of all, the precise fly that you need is not
+there.
+
+You select a couple that you think fairly good, lay them down beside you
+in the grass, and go on looking through the book for something better.
+Failing to satisfy yourself, you turn to pick up those that you have
+laid out, and find that they have mysteriously vanished from the face of
+the earth.
+
+Then you struggle with naughty words and relapse into a condition of
+mental palsy.
+
+Precipitation is a fault. But deliberation, for a person of precipitate
+disposition, is a vice.
+
+The best thing to do in such a case is to adopt some abstract theory of
+action without delay, and put it into practice without hesitation. Then
+if you fail, you can throw the responsibility on the theory.
+
+Now, in regard to flies there are two theories. The old, conservative
+theory is, that on a bright day you should use a dark, dull fly, because
+it is less conspicuous. So I followed that theory first and put on a
+Great Dun and a Dark Montreal. I cast them delicately over the fish, but
+he would not look at them.
+
+Then I perverted myself to the new, radical theory which says that on a
+bright day you must use a light, gay fly, because it is more in harmony
+with the sky, and therefore less noticeable. Accordingly I put on a
+Professor and a Parmacheene Belle; but this combination of learning and
+beauty had no attraction for the ouananiche.
+
+Then I fell back on a theory of my own, to the effect that the
+ouananiche have an aversion to red, and prefer yellow and brown. So I
+tried various combinations of flies in which these colours predominated.
+
+Then I abandoned all theories and went straight through my book, trying
+something from every page, and winding up with that lure which the
+guides consider infallible,--"a Jock o' Scott that cost fifty cents at
+Quebec." But it was all in vain. I was ready to despair.
+
+At this psychological moment I heard behind me a voice of hope,--the
+song of a grasshopper: not one of those fat-legged, green-winged
+imbeciles that feebly tumble in the summer fields, but a game
+grasshopper,--one of those thin-shanked, brown-winged fellows that leap
+like kangaroos, and fly like birds, and sing KRI-KAREE-KAREE-KRI in
+their flight.
+
+It is not really a song, I know, but it sounds like one; and, if you had
+heard that Kri-karee carolling as I chased him over the rocks, you would
+have been sure that he was mocking me.
+
+I believed that he was the predestined lure for that ouananiche; but it
+was hard to persuade him to fulfill his destiny. I slapped at him
+with my hat, but he was not there. I grasped at him on the bushes, and
+brought away "nothing but leaves." At last he made his way to the very
+edge of the water and poised himself on a stone, with his legs well
+tucked in for a long leap and a bold flight to the other side of the
+river. It was my final opportunity. I made a desperate grab at it and
+caught the grasshopper.
+
+My premonition proved to be correct. When that Kri-karee, invisibly
+attached to my line, went floating down the stream, the ouananiche was
+surprised. It was the fourteenth of September, and he had supposed the
+grasshopper season was over. The unexpected temptation was too strong
+for him. He rose with a rush, and in an instant I was fast to the best
+land-locked salmon of the year.
+
+But the situation was not without its embarrassments. My rod weighed
+only four and a quarter ounces; the fish weighed between six and seven
+pounds. The water was furious and headstrong. I had only thirty yards of
+line and no landing-net.
+
+"HOLA! FERDINAND!" I cried. "APPORTE LA NETTE, VITE! A BEAUTY! HURRY
+UP!"
+
+I thought it must be an hour while he was making his way over the hill,
+through the underbrush, around the cliff. Again and again the fish ran
+out my line almost to the last turn. A dozen times he leaped from the
+water, shaking his silvery sides. Twice he tried to cut the leader
+across a sunken ledge. But at last he was played out, and came in
+quietly towards the point of the rock. At the same moment Ferdinand
+appeared with the net.
+
+Now, the use of the net is really the most difficult part of angling.
+And Ferdinand is the best netsman in the Lake St. John country. He never
+makes the mistake of trying to scoop a fish in motion. He does not grope
+around with aimless, futile strokes as if he were feeling for something
+in the dark. He does not entangle the dropper-fly in the net and tear
+the tail-fly out of the fish's mouth. He does not get excited.
+
+He quietly sinks the net in the water, and waits until he can see the
+fish distinctly, lying perfectly still and within reach. Then he makes a
+swift movement, like that of a mower swinging the scythe, takes the fish
+into the net head-first, and lands him without a slip.
+
+I felt sure that Ferdinand was going to do the trick in precisely this
+way with my ouananiche. Just at the right instant he made one quick,
+steady swing of the arms, and--the head of the net broke clean off the
+handle and went floating away with the fish in it!
+
+All seemed to be lost. But Ferdinand was equal to the occasion. He
+seized a long, crooked stick that lay in a pile of driftwood on the
+shore, sprang into the water up to his waist, caught the net as it
+drifted past, and dragged it to land, with the ultimate ouananiche, the
+prize of the season, still glittering through its meshes.
+
+This is the story of my most thrilling moment as an angler.
+
+But which was the moment of the deepest thrill?
+
+Was it when the huckleberry bush saved me from a watery grave, or when
+the log rolled under my feet and started down the river? Was it when the
+fish rose, or when the net broke, or when the long stick captured it?
+
+No, it was none of these. It was when the Kri-karee sat with his legs
+tucked under him on the brink of the stream. That was the turning-point.
+The fortunes of the day depended on the comparative quickness of the
+reflex action of his neural ganglia and mine. That was the thrilling
+moment.
+
+I see it now. A crisis is really the commonest thing in the world. The
+reason why life sometimes seems dull to us is because we do not perceive
+the importance and the excitement of getting bait.
+
+
+
+
+TALKABILITY
+
+A PRELUDE AND THEME WITH VARIATIONS
+
+
+     "He praises a meditative life, and with evident sincerity:
+     but we feel that he liked nothing so well as good talk."
+
+     --JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: Walton.
+
+
+
+
+I. PRELUDE--ON AN OLD, FOOLISH MAXIM
+
+
+The inventor of the familiar maxim that "fishermen must not talk" is
+lost in the mists of antiquity, and well deserves his fate. For a more
+foolish rule, a conventionality more obscure and aimless in its tyranny,
+was never imposed upon an innocent and honourable occupation, to
+diminish its pleasure and discount its profits. Why, in the name of all
+that is genial, should anglers go about their harmless sport in stealthy
+silence like conspirators, or sit together in a boat, dumb, glum, and
+penitential, like naughty schoolboys on the bench of disgrace? 'Tis
+an Omorcan superstition; a rule without a reason; a venerable, idiotic
+fashion invented to repress lively spirits and put a premium on
+stupidity.
+
+For my part, I incline rather to the opinion of the Neapolitan fishermen
+who maintain that a certain amount of noise, of certain kinds, is likely
+to improve the fishing, and who have a particular song, very sweet
+and charming, which they sing to draw the fishes around them. It is
+narrated, likewise, of the good St. Brandan, that on his notable voyage
+from Ireland in search of Paradise, he chanted the service for St.
+Peter's day so pleasantly that a subaqueous audience of all sorts and
+sizes was attracted, insomuch that the other monks began to be afraid,
+and begged the abbot that he would sing a little lower, for they were
+not quite sure of the intention of the congregation. Of St. Anthony of
+Padua it is said that he even succeeded in persuading the fishes, in
+great multitudes, to listen to a sermon; and that when it was ended
+(it must be noted that it was both short and cheerful) they bowed their
+heads and moved their bodies up and down with every mark of fondness and
+approval of what the holy father had spoken.
+
+If we can believe this, surely we need not be incredulous of things
+which seem to be no less, but rather more, in harmony with the course
+of nature. Creatures who are sensible to the attractions of a sermon can
+hardly be indifferent to the charm of other kinds of discourse. I can
+easily imagine a company of grayling wishing to overhear a conversation
+between I. W. and his affectionate (but somewhat prodigal) son and
+servant, Charles Cotton; and surely every intelligent salmon in Scotland
+might have been glad to hear Christopher North and the Ettrick
+Shepherd bandy jests and swap stories. As for trout,--was there one in
+Massachusetts that would not have been curious to listen to the
+intimate opinions of Daniel Webster as he loafed along the banks of
+the Marshpee,--or is there one in Pennsylvania to-day that might not be
+drawn with interest and delight to the feet of Joseph Jefferson,
+telling how he conceived and wrote RIP VAN WINKLE on the banks of a
+trout-stream?
+
+Fishermen must be silent? On the contrary, it is far more likely that
+good talk may promote good fishing.
+
+All this, however, goes upon the assumption that fish can hear, in
+the proper sense of the word. And this, it must be confessed, is an
+assumption not yet fully verified. Experienced anglers and students of
+fishy ways are divided upon the question. It is beyond a doubt that all
+fishes, except the very lowest forms, have ears. But then so have all
+men; and yet we have the best authority for believing that there are
+many who "having ears, hear not."
+
+The ears of fishes, for the most part, are inclosed in their skull, and
+have no outward opening. Water conveys sound, as every country boy
+knows who has tried the experiment of diving to the bottom of the
+swimming-hole and knocking two big stones together. But I doubt whether
+any country boy, engaged in this interesting scientific experiment, has
+heard the conversation of his friends on the bank who were engaged in
+hiding his clothes.
+
+There are many curious and more or less venerable stories to the effect
+that fishes may be trained to assemble at the ringing of a bell or the
+beating of a drum. Lucian, a writer of the second century, tells of a
+certain lake wherein many sacred fishes were kept, of which the largest
+had names given to them, and came when they were called. But Lucian
+was not a man of especially good reputation, and there is an air of
+improbability about his statement that the LARGEST fishes came. This is
+not the custom of the largest fishes.
+
+In the present century there was a tale of an eel in a garden-well, in
+Scotland, which would come to be fed out of a spoon when the children
+called him by his singularly inappropriate name of Rob Roy. This seems
+a more likely story than Lucian's; at all events it comes from a more
+orthodox atmosphere. But before giving it full credence, I should like
+to know whether the children, when they called "Rob Roy!" stood where
+the eel could see the spoon.
+
+On the other side of the question, we may quote Mr. Ronalds, also a
+Scotchman, and the learned author of THE FLY-FISHER'S ENTOMOLOGY, who
+conducted a series of experiments which proved that even trout, the most
+fugacious of fish, are not in the least disturbed by the discharge of a
+gun, provided the flash is concealed. Mr. Henry P. Wells, the author of
+THE AMERICAN SALMON ANGLER, says that he has "never been able to make a
+sound in the air which seemed to produce the slightest effect upon trout
+in the water."
+
+So the controversy on the hearing of fishes continues, and the
+conclusion remains open. Every man is at liberty to embrace that side
+which pleases him best. You may think that the finny tribes are as
+sensitive to sound as Fine Ear, in the German fairy-tale, who could hear
+the grass grow. Or you may hold the opposite opinion, that they are
+
+
+     "Deafer than the blue-eyed cat."
+
+
+But whichever theory you adopt, in practice, if you are a wise
+fisherman, you will steer a middle course, between one thing which must
+be left undone and another thing which should be done. You will refrain
+from stamping on the bank, or knocking on the side of the boat, or
+dragging the anchor among the stones on the bottom; for when the water
+vibrates the fish are likely to vanish. But you will indulge as freely
+as you please in pleasant discourse with your comrade; for it is certain
+that fishing is never hindered, and may even be helped, in one way or
+another, by good talk.
+
+I should therefore have no hesitation in advising any one to choose, for
+companionship on an angling expedition, long or short, a person who has
+the rare merit of being TALKABLE.
+
+
+
+
+II. THEME--ON A SMALL, USEFUL VIRTUE
+
+
+"Talkable" is not a new adjective. But it needs a new definition, and
+the complement of a corresponding noun. I would fain set down on paper
+some observations and reflections which may serve to make its meaning
+clear, and render due praise to that most excellent quality in man
+or woman,--especially in anglers,--the small but useful virtue of
+TALKABILITY.
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson uses the word "talkable" in one of his essays
+to denote a certain distinction among the possible subjects of human
+speech. There are some things, he says in effect, about which you can
+really talk; and there are other things about which you cannot properly
+talk at all, but only dispute, or harangue, or prose, or moralize, or
+chatter.
+
+After mature consideration I have arrived at the opinion that this
+distinction among the themes of speech is an illusion. It does not
+exist. All subjects, "the foolish things of the world, and the weak
+things of the world, and base things of the world, yea, and things that
+are not," may provide matter for good talk, if only the right people are
+engaged in the enterprise. I know a man who can make a description of
+the weather as entertaining as a tune on the violin; and even on the
+threadbare theme of the waywardness of domestic servants, I have heard a
+discreet woman play the most diverting and instructive variations.
+
+No, the quality of talkability does not mark a distinction among things;
+it denotes a difference among people. It is not an attribute unequally
+distributed among material objects and abstract ideas. It is a virtue
+which belongs to the mind and moral character of certain persons. It
+is a reciprocal human quality; active as well as passive; a power of
+bestowing and receiving.
+
+An amiable person is one who has a capacity for loving and being loved.
+An affable person is one who is ready to speak and to be spoken to,--as,
+for example, Milton's "affable archangel" Raphael; though it must be
+confessed that he laid the chief emphasis on the active side of his
+affability. A "clubable" person (to use a word which Dr. Samuel Johnson
+invented but did not put into his dictionary) is one who is fit for the
+familiar give and take of club-life. A talkable person, therefore, is
+one whose nature and disposition invite the easy interchange of thoughts
+and feelings, one in whose company it is a pleasure to talk or to be
+talked to.
+
+Now this good quality of talkability is to be distinguished, very
+strictly and inflexibly, from the bad quality which imitates it and
+often brings it into discredit. I mean the vice of talkativeness. That
+is a selfish, one-sided, inharmonious affair, full of discomfort, and
+productive of most unchristian feelings.
+
+You may observe the operations of this vice not only in human beings,
+but also in birds. All the birds in the bush can make some kind of a
+noise; and most of them like to do it; and some of them like it a great
+deal and do it very much. But it is not always for edification, nor are
+the most vociferous and garrulous birds commonly the most pleasing. A
+parrot, for instance, in your neighbour's back yard, in the summer time,
+when the windows are open, is not an aid to the development of Christian
+character. I knew a man who had to stay in the city all summer, and in
+the autumn was asked to describe the character and social standing of
+a new family that had moved into his neighbourhood. Were they "nice
+people," well-bred, intelligent, respectable? "Well," said he, "I don't
+know what your standards are, and would prefer not to say anything
+libellous; but I'll tell you in a word,--they are the kind of people
+that keep a parrot."
+
+Then there is the English Sparrow! What an insufferable chatterbox,
+what an incurable scold, what a voluble and tiresome blackguard is this
+little feathered cockney. There is not a sweet or pleasant word in all
+his vocabulary.
+
+I am convinced that he talks altogether of scandals and fights and
+street-sweepings.
+
+The kingdom of ornithology is divided into two departments,--real birds
+and English sparrows. English sparrows are not real birds; they are
+little beasts.
+
+There was a church in Brooklyn which was once covered with a great and
+spreading vine, in which the sparrows built innumerable nests. These
+ungodly little birds kept up such a din that it was impossible to hear
+the service of the sanctuary. The faithful clergy strained their voices
+to the verge of ministerial sore throat, but the people had no peace in
+their devotions until the vine was cut down, and the Anglican intruders
+were evicted.
+
+A talkative person is like an English sparrow,--a bird that cannot
+sing, and will sing, and ought to be persuaded not to try to sing. But
+a talkable person has the gift that belongs to the wood thrush and
+the veery and the wren, the oriole and the white-throat and the
+rose-breasted grosbeak, the mockingbird and the robin (sometimes); and
+the brown thrush; yes, the brown thrush has it to perfection, if you can
+catch him alone,--the gift of being interesting, charming, delightful,
+in the most off-hand and various modes of utterance.
+
+Talkability is not at all the same thing as eloquence. The eloquent man
+surprises, overwhelms, and sometimes paralyzes us by the display of his
+power. Great orators are seldom good talkers. Oratory in exercise is
+masterful and jealous, and intolerant of all interruptions. Oratory in
+preparation is silent, self-centred, uncommunicative. The painful
+truth of this remark may be seen in the row of countenances along the
+president's table at a public banquet about nine o'clock in the evening.
+The bicycle-face seems unconstrained and merry by comparison with
+the after-dinner-speech-face. The flow of table-talk is corked by the
+anxious conception of post-prandial oratory.
+
+Thackeray, in one of his ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, speaks of "the sin
+of tall-talking," which, he says, "is the sin of schoolmasters,
+governesses, critics, sermoners, and instructors of young or old
+people." But this is not in accord with my observation. I should say it
+was rather the sin of dilettanti who are ambitious of that high-stepping
+accomplishment which is called "conversational ability."
+
+This has usually, to my mind, something set and artificial about it,
+although in its most perfect form the art almost succeeds in concealing
+itself. But, at all events, ''conversation'' is talk in evening dress,
+with perhaps a little powder and a touch of rouge. 'T is like one of
+those wise virgins who are said to look their best by lamplight. And
+doubtless this is an excellent thing, and not without its advantages.
+But for my part, commend me to one who loses nothing by the early
+morning illumination,--one who brings all her attractions with her when
+she comes down to breakfast,--she is a very pleasant maid.
+
+Talk is that form of human speech which is exempt from all duties,
+foreign and domestic. It is the nearest thing in the world to thinking
+and feeling aloud. It is necessarily not for publication,--solely an
+evidence of good faith and mutual kindness. You tell me what you have
+seen and what you are thinking about, because you take it for granted
+that it will interest and entertain me; and you listen to my replies and
+the recital of my adventures and opinions, because you know I like
+to tell them, and because you find something in them, of one kind or
+another, that you care to hear. It is a nice game, with easy, simple
+rules, and endless possibilities of variation. And if we go into it
+with the right spirit, and play it for love, without heavy stakes, the
+chances are that if we happen to be fairly talkable people we shall have
+one of the best things in the world,--a mighty good talk.
+
+What is there in this anxious, hide-bound, tiresome existence of ours,
+more restful and remunerative? Montaigne says, "The use of it is more
+sweet than of any other action of life; and for that reason it is that,
+if I were compelled to choose, I should sooner, I think, consent to lose
+my sight than my hearing and speech." The very aimlessness with which
+it proceeds, the serene disregard of all considerations of profit and
+propriety with which it follows its wandering course, and brings up
+anywhere or nowhere, to camp for the night, is one of its attractions.
+It is like a day's fishing, not valuable chiefly for the fish you bring
+home, but for the pleasant country through which it leads you, and the
+state of personal well-being and health in which it leaves you, warmed,
+and cheered, and content with life and friendship.
+
+The order in which you set out upon a talk, the path which you pursue,
+the rules which you observe or disregard, make but little difference
+in the end. You may follow the advice of Immanuel Kant if you like, and
+begin with the weather and the roads, and go on to current events, and
+wind up with history, art, and philosophy. Or you may reverse the order
+if you prefer, like that admirable talker Clarence King, who usually set
+sail on some highly abstract paradox, such as "Civilization is a nervous
+disease," and landed in a tale of adventure in Mexico or the Rocky
+Mountains. Or you may follow the example of Edward Eggleston, who
+started in at the middle and worked out at either end, and sometimes at
+both. It makes no difference. If the thing is in you at all, you will
+find good matter for talk anywhere along the route. Hear what Montaigne
+says again: "In our discourse all subjects are alike to me; let there
+be neither weight nor depth, 't is all one; there is yet grace and
+pertinence; all there is tented with a mature and constant judgment, and
+mixed with goodness, freedom, gayety, and friendship."
+
+How close to the mark the old essayist sends his arrow! He is right
+about the essential qualities of good talk. They are not merely
+intellectual. They are moral. Goodness of heart, freedom of spirit,
+gayety of temper, and friendliness of disposition,--these are four fine
+things, and doubtless as acceptable to God as they are agreeable to men.
+The talkability which springs out of these qualities has its roots in a
+good soil. On such a plant one need not look for the poison berries of
+malign discourse, nor for the Dead Sea apples of frivolous mockery.
+But fair fruit will be there, pleasant to the sight and good for food,
+brought forth abundantly according to the season.
+
+
+
+
+III. VARIATIONS--ON A PLEASANT PHRASE FROM MONTAIGNE
+
+
+Montaigne has given as our text, "Goodness, freedom, gayety, and
+friendship,"--these are the conditions which produce talkability. And
+on this fourfold theme we may embroider a few variations, by way of
+exposition and enlargement.
+
+GOODNESS is the first thing and the most needful. An ugly, envious,
+irritable disposition is not fitted for talk. The occasions for offence
+are too numerous, and the way into strife is too short and easy. A
+touch of good-natured combativeness, a fondness for brisk argument, a
+readiness to try a friendly bout with any comer, on any ground, is a
+decided advantage in a talker. It breaks up the offensive monotony of
+polite concurrence, and makes things lively. But quarrelsomeness is
+quite another affair, and very fatal.
+
+I am always a little uneasy in a discourse with the Reverend Bellicosus
+Macduff. It is like playing golf on links liable to earthquakes. One
+never knows when the landscape will be thrown into convulsions. Macduff
+has a tendency to regard a difference of opinion as a personal insult.
+If he makes a bad stroke he seems to think that the way to retrieve it
+is to deliver the next one on the head of the other player. He does
+not tarry for the invitation to lay on; and before you know what has
+happened you find yourself in a position where you are obliged to cry,
+"Hold, enough!" and to be liberally damned without any bargain to that
+effect. This is discouraging, and calculated to make one wish that human
+intercourse might be put, as far as Macduff is concerned, upon the gold
+basis of silence.
+
+On the other hand, what a delight it was to talk with that old worthy,
+Chancellor Howard Crosby. He was a fighting man for four or five
+generations hack, Dutch on one side, English on the other. But there was
+not one little drop of gall in his blood. His opinions were fixed to a
+degree; he loved to do battle for them; he never changed them--at least
+never in the course of the same discussion. He admired and respected
+a gallant adversary, and urged him on, with quips and puns and daring
+assaults and unqualified statements, to do his best. Easy victories were
+not to his taste. Even if he joined with you in laying out some common
+falsehood for burial, you might be sure that before the affair was
+concluded there would be every prospect of what an Irishman would call
+"an elegant wake." If you stood up against him on one of his favorite
+subjects of discussion you must be prepared for hot work. You would have
+to take off your coat. But when the combat was over he would be the man
+to help you on with it again; and you would walk home together arm in
+arm, through the twilight, smoking the pipe of peace. Talk like that
+does good. It quickens the beating of the heart, and leaves no scars
+upon it.
+
+But this manly spirit, which loves
+
+
+     "To drink delight of battle with its peers,"
+
+
+is a very different thing from that mean, bad, hostile temper which
+loves to inflict wounds and injuries just for the sake of showing power,
+and which is never so happy as when it is making some one wince. There
+are such people in the world, and sometimes their brilliancy tempts us
+to forget their malignancy. But to have much converse with them is as if
+we should make playmates of rattlesnakes for their grace of movement and
+swiftness of stroke.
+
+I knew a man once (I will not name him even with an initial) who was
+malignant to the core. Learned, industrious, accomplished, he kept
+all his talents at the service of a perfect genius for hatred. If you
+crossed his path but once, he would never cease to curse you. The grave
+might close over you, but he would revile your epitaph and mock at your
+memory. It was not even necessary that you should do anything to incur
+his enmity. It was enough to be upright and sincere and successful, to
+waken the wrath of this Shimei. Integrity was an offence to him, and
+excellence of any kind filled him with spleen. There was no good cause
+within his horizon that he did not give a bad word to, and no decent
+man in the community whom he did not try either to use or to abuse. To
+listen to him or to read what he had written was to learn to think a
+little worse of every one that he mentioned, and worst of all of him. He
+had the air of a gentleman, the vocabulary of a scholar, the style of a
+Junius, and the heart of a Thersites.
+
+Talk, in such company, is impossible. The sense of something evil,
+lurking beneath the play of wit, is like the knowledge that there are
+snakes in the grass. Every step must be taken with fear. But the
+real pleasure of a walk through the meadow comes from the feeling of
+security, of ease, of safe and happy abandon to the mood of the moment.
+This ungirdled and unguarded felicity in mutual discourse depends, after
+all, upon the assurance of real goodness in your companion. I do not
+mean a stiff impeccability of conduct. Prudes and Pharisees are poor
+comrades. I mean simply goodness of heart, the wholesome, generous,
+kindly quality which thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, hopeth
+all things, endureth all things, and wisheth well to all men. Where you
+feel this quality you can let yourself go, in the ease of hearty talk.
+
+FREEDOM is the second note that Montaigne strikes, and it is essential
+to the harmony of talking. Very careful, prudent, precise persons are
+seldom entertaining in familiar speech. They are like tennis players in
+too fine clothes. They think more of their costume than of the game.
+
+A mania for absolutely correct pronunciation is fatal. The people who
+are afflicted with this painful ailment are as anxious about their
+utterance as dyspeptics about their diet. They move through their
+sentences as delicately as Agag walked. Their little airs of nicety,
+their starched cadences and frilled phrases seem as if they had just
+been taken out of a literary bandbox. If perchance you happen to
+misplace an accent, you shall see their eyebrows curl up like an
+interrogation mark, and they will ask you what authority you have
+for that pronunciation. As if, forsooth, a man could not talk without
+book-license! As if he must have a permit from some dusty lexicon before
+he can take a good word into his mouth and speak it out like the people
+with whom he has lived!
+
+The truth is that the man who is very particular not to commit himself,
+in pronunciation or otherwise, and talks as if his remarks were being
+taken down in shorthand, and shudders at the thought of making a
+mistake, will hardly be able to open your heart or let out the best that
+is in his own.
+
+Reserve and precision are a great protection to overrated reputations;
+but they are death to talk.
+
+In talk it is not correctness of grammar nor elegance of enunciation
+that charms us; it is spirit, VERVE, the sudden turn of humour, the
+keen, pungent taste of life. For this reason a touch of dialect, a
+flavour of brogue, is delightful. Any dialect is classic that has
+conveyed beautiful thoughts. Who that ever talked with the poet
+Tennyson, when he let himself go, over the pipes, would miss the savour
+of his broad-rolling Lincolnshire vowels, now heightening the humour,
+now deepening the pathos, of his genuine manly speech? There are many
+good stories lingering in the memories of those who knew Dr. James
+McCosh, the late president of Princeton University,--stories too good, I
+fear, to get into a biography; but the best of them, in print, would not
+have the snap and vigour of the poorest of them, in talk, with his own
+inimitable Scotch-Irish brogue to set it forth.
+
+A brogue is not a fault. It is a beauty, an heirloom, a distinction. A
+local accent is like a landed inheritance; it marks a man's place in the
+world, tells where he comes from. Of course it is possible to have too
+much of it. A man does not need to carry the soil of his whole farm
+around with him on his boots. But, within limits, the accent of a native
+region is delightful. 'T is the flavour of heather in the grouse,
+the taste of wild herbs and evergreen-buds in the venison. I like the
+maple-sugar tang of the Vermonter's sharp-edged speech; the round,
+full-waisted r's of Pennsylvania and Ohio; the soft, indolent vowels
+of the South. One of the best talkers now living is a schoolmaster from
+Virginia, Colonel Gordon McCabe. I once crossed the ocean with him on
+a stream of stories that reached from Liverpool to New York. He did not
+talk in the least like a book. He talked like a Virginian.
+
+When Montaigne mentions GAYETY as the third clement of satisfying
+discourse, I fancy he does not mean mere fun, though that has its value
+at the right time and place. But there is another quality which is far
+more valuable and always fit. Indeed it underlies the best fun and makes
+it wholesome. It is cheerfulness, the temper which makes the best
+of things and squeezes the little drops of honey even out of
+thistle-blossoms. I think this is what Montaigne meant. Certainly it is
+what he had.
+
+Cheerfulness is the background of all good talk. A sense of humour is a
+means of grace. With it I have heard a pleasant soul make even that
+most perilous of all subjects, the description of a long illness,
+entertaining. The various physicians moved through the recital as
+excellent comedians, and the medicines appeared like a succession of
+timely jests.
+
+There is no occasion upon which this precious element of talkability
+comes out stronger than when we are on a journey. Travel with a
+cheerless and easily discouraged companion is an unadulterated
+misery. But a cheerful comrade is better than a waterproof coat and a
+foot-warmer.
+
+I remember riding once with my lady Graygown fifteen miles through a
+cold rainstorm, in an open buckboard, over the worst road in the world,
+from LAC A LA BELLE RIVIERE to the Metabetchouan River. Such was the
+cheerfulness of her ejaculations (the only possible form of talk)
+that we arrived at our destination as warm and merry as if we had been
+sitting beside a roaring camp-fire.
+
+
+But after all, the very best thing in good talk, and the thing that
+helps it most, is FRIENDSHIP. How it dissolves the barriers that divide
+us, and loosens all constraint, and diffuses itself like some fine old
+cordial through all the veins of life--this feeling that we understand
+and trust each other, and wish each other heartily well! Everything into
+which it really comes is good. It transforms letter-writing from a task
+into a pleasure. It makes music a thousand times more sweet. The people
+who play and sing not at us, but TO us,--how delightful it is to listen
+to them! Yes, there is a talkability that can express itself even
+without words. There is an exchange of thought and feeling which is
+happy alike in speech and in silence. It is quietness pervaded with
+friendship.
+
+
+Having come thus far in the exposition of Montaigne, I shall conclude
+with an opinion of my own, even though I cannot quote a sentence of his
+to back it.
+
+The one person of all the world in whom talkability is most desirable,
+and talkativeness least endurable, is a wife.
+
+
+
+
+A WILD STRAWBERRY
+
+
+     "Such is the story of the Boblink; once spiritual, musical,
+     admired, the joy of the meadows, and the favourite bird of
+     spring; finally a gross little sensualist who expiates his
+     sensuality in the larder. His story contains a moral, worthy
+     the attention of all little birds and little boys; warning
+     them to keep to those refined and intellectual pursuits
+     which raised him to so high a pitch of popularity during the
+     early part of his career; but to eschew all tendency to that
+     gross and dissipated indulgence, which brought this mistaken
+     little bird to an untimely end."
+
+     --WASHINGTON IRVING: Wolfert's Roost.
+
+
+The Swiftwater brook was laughing softly to itself as it ran through a
+strip of hemlock forest on the edge of the Woodlings' farm. Among the
+evergreen branches overhead the gayly-dressed warblers,--little friends
+of the forest,--were flitting to and fro, lisping their June songs of
+contented love: milder, slower, lazier notes than those in which
+they voiced the amourous raptures of May. Prince's Pine and golden
+loose-strife and pink laurel and blue hare-bells and purple-fringed
+orchids, and a score of lovely flowers were all abloom. The late spring
+had hindered some; the sudden heats of early summer had hastened others;
+and now they seemed to come out all together, as if Nature had suddenly
+tilted up her cornucopia and poured forth her treasures in spendthrift
+joy.
+
+I lay on a mossy bank at the foot of a tree, filling my pipe after a
+frugal lunch, and thinking how hard it would be to find in any quarter
+of the globe a place more fair and fragrant than this hidden vale among
+the Alleghany Mountains. The perfume of the flowers of the forest is
+more sweet and subtle than the heavy scent of tropical blossoms. No
+lily-field in Bermuda could give a fragrance half so magical as the
+fairy-like odour of these woodland slopes, soft carpeted with the green
+of glossy vines above whose tiny leaves, in delicate profusion,
+
+
+     "The slight Linnaea hangs its twin-born heads."
+
+
+Nor are there any birds in Africa, or among the Indian Isles, more
+exquisite in colour than these miniature warblers, showing their gold
+and green, their orange and black, their blue and white, against the
+dark background of the rhododendron thicket.
+
+But how seldom we put a cup of pleasure to our lips without a dash of
+bitters, a touch of faultfinding. My drop of discontent, that day, was
+the thought that the northern woodland, at least in June, yielded no
+fruit to match its beauty and its fragrance.
+
+There is good browsing among the leaves of the wood and the grasses of
+the meadow, as every well-instructed angler knows. The bright emerald
+tips that break from the hemlock and the balsam like verdant flames have
+a pleasant savour to the tongue. The leaves of the sassafras are full
+of spice, and the bark of the black-birch twigs holds a fine cordial.
+Crinkle-root is spicy, but you must partake of it delicately, or it will
+bite your tongue. Spearmint and peppermint never lose their charm for
+the palate that still remembers the delights of youth. Wild sorrel has
+an agreeable, sour, shivery flavour. Even the tender stalk of a young
+blade of grass is a thing that can be chewed by a person of childlike
+mind with much contentment.
+
+But, after all, these are only relishes. They whet the appetite more
+than they appease it. There should be something to eat, in the June
+woods, as perfect in its kind, as satisfying to the sense of taste, as
+the birds and the flowers are to the senses of sight and hearing and
+smell. Blueberries are good, but they are far away in July. Blackberries
+are luscious when they are fully ripe, but that will not be until
+August. Then the fishing will be over, and the angler's hour of need
+will be past. The one thing that is lacking now beside this mountain
+stream is some fruit more luscious and dainty than grows in the tropics,
+to melt upon the lips and fill the mouth with pleasure.
+
+But that is what these cold northern woods will not offer. They are too
+reserved, too lofty, too puritanical to make provision for the grosser
+wants of humanity. They are not friendly to luxury.
+
+Just then, as I shifted my head to find a softer pillow of moss after
+this philosophic and immoral reflection, Nature gave me her silent
+answer. Three wild strawberries, nodding on their long stems, hung over
+my face. It was an invitation to taste and see that they were good.
+
+The berries were not the round and rosy ones of the meadow, but the
+long, slender, dark crimson ones of the forest. One, two, three; no more
+on that vine; but each one as it touched my lips was a drop of nectar
+and a crumb of ambrosia, a concentrated essence of all the pungent
+sweetness of the wildwood, sapid, penetrating, and delicious. I tasted
+the odour of a hundred blossoms and the green shimmering of innumerable
+leaves and the sparkle of sifted sunbeams and the breath of highland
+breezes and the song of many birds and the murmur of flowing
+streams,--all in a wild strawberry.
+
+
+Do you remember, in THE COMPLEAT ANGLER, a remark which Isaak Walton
+quotes from a certain "Doctor Boteler" about strawberries? "Doubtless,"
+said that wise old man, "God could have made a better berry, but
+doubtless God never did."
+
+Well, the wild strawberry is the one that God made.
+
+I think it would have been pleasant to know a man who could sum up
+his reflections upon the important question of berries in such a pithy
+saying as that which Walton repeats. His tongue must have been in close
+communication with his heart. He must have had a fair sense of that
+sprightly humour without which piety itself is often insipid.
+
+I have often tried to find out more about him, and some day I hope I
+shall. But up to the present, all that the books have told me of this
+obscure sage is that his name was William Butler, and that he was an
+eminent physician, sometimes called "the Aesculapius of his age." He was
+born at Ipswich, in 1535, and educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge; in the
+neighbourhood of which town he appears to have spent the most of his
+life, in high repute as a practitioner of physic. He had the honour of
+doctoring King James the First after an accident on the hunting field,
+and must have proved himself a pleasant old fellow, for the king looked
+him up at Cambridge the next year, and spent an hour in his lodgings.
+This wise physician also invented a medicinal beverage called "Doctor
+Butler's Ale." I do not quite like the sound of it, but perhaps it was
+better than its name. This much is sure, at all events: either it was
+really a harmless drink, or else the doctor must have confined its use
+entirely to his patients; for he lived to the ripe age of eighty-three
+years.
+
+Between the time when William Butler first needed the services of a
+physician, in 1535, and the time when he last prescribed for a patient,
+in 1618, there was plenty of trouble in England. Bloody Queen Mary sat
+on the throne; and there were all kinds of quarrels about religion and
+politics; and Catholics and Protestants were killing one another in
+the name of God. After that the red-haired Elizabeth, called the Virgin
+Queen, wore the crown, and waged triumphant war and tempestuous love.
+Then fat James of Scotland was made king of Great Britain; and Guy
+Fawkes tried to blow him up with gunpowder, and failed; and the king
+tried to blow out all the pipes in England with his COUNTERBLAST AGAINST
+TOBACCO; but he failed too. Somewhere about that time, early in the
+seventeenth century, a very small event happened. A new berry was
+brought over from Virginia,--FRAGRARIA VIRGINIANA,--and then, amid wars
+and rumours of wars, Doctor Butler's happiness was secure. That new
+berry was so much richer and sweeter and more generous than the familiar
+FRAGRARIA VESCA of Europe, that it attracted the sincere interest of all
+persons of good taste. It inaugurated a new era in the history of the
+strawberry. The long lost masterpiece of Paradise was restored to its
+true place in the affections of man.
+
+Is there not a touch of merry contempt for all the vain controversies
+and conflicts of humanity in the grateful ejaculation with which the old
+doctor greeted that peaceful, comforting gift of Providence?
+
+"From this time forward," he seems to say, "the fates cannot beggar
+me, for I have eaten strawberries. With every Maytime that visits this
+distracted island, the white blossoms with hearts of gold will arrive.
+In every June the red drops of pleasant savour will hang among the
+scalloped leaves. The children of this world may wrangle and give one
+another wounds that even my good ale cannot cure. Nevertheless, the
+earth as God created it is a fair dwelling and full of comfort for all
+who have a quiet mind and a thankful heart. Doubtless God might have
+made a better world, but doubtless this is the world He made for us; and
+in it He planted the strawberry."
+
+Fine old doctor! Brave philosopher of cheerfulness! The Virginian berry
+should have been brought to England sooner, or you should have lived
+longer, at least to a hundred years, so that you might have welcomed a
+score of strawberry-seasons with gratitude and an epigram.
+
+Since that time a great change has passed over the fruit which Doctor
+Butler praised so well. That product of creative art which Divine wisdom
+did not choose to surpass, human industry has laboured to improve. It
+has grown immensely in size and substance. The traveller from America
+who steams into Queenstown harbour in early summer is presented (for a
+consideration) with a cabbage-leaf full of pale-hued berries, sweet and
+juicy, any one of which would outbulk a dozen of those that used to grow
+in Virginia when Pocahontas was smitten with the charms of Captain John
+Smith. They are superb, those light-tinted Irish strawberries. And there
+are wonderful new varieties developed in the gardens of New Jersey and
+Rhode Island, which compare with the ancient berries of the woods and
+meadows as Leviathan with a minnow. The huge crimson cushions hang among
+the plants so thick that they seem like bunches of fruit with a few
+leaves attached for ornament. You can satisfy your hunger in such a
+berry-patch in ten minutes, while out in the field you must pick for
+half an hour, and in the forest thrice as long, before you can fill a
+small tin cup.
+
+Yet, after all, it is questionable whether men have really bettered
+God's CHEF D'OEUVRE in the berry line. They have enlarged it and made
+it more plentiful and more certain in its harvest. But sweeter, more
+fragrant, more poignant in its flavour? No. The wild berry still stands
+first in its subtle gusto.
+
+Size is not the measure of excellence. Perfection lies in quality, not
+in quantity. Concentration enhances pleasure, gives it a point so that
+it goes deeper.
+
+Is not a ten-inch trout better than a ten-foot sturgeon? I would rather
+read a tiny essay by Charles Lamb than a five-hundred page libel on
+life by a modern British novelist who shall be nameless. Flavour is the
+priceless quality. Style is the thing that counts and is remembered, in
+literature, in art, and in berries.
+
+No JOCUNDA, nor TRIUMPH, nor VICTORIA, nor any other high-titled fruit
+that ever took the first prize at an agricultural fair, is half so
+delicate and satisfying as the wild strawberry that dropped into my
+mouth, under the hemlock tree, beside the Swiftwater.
+
+A touch of surprise is essential to perfect sweetness.
+
+To get what you have been wishing for is pleasant; but to get what
+you have not been sure of, makes the pleasure tingle. A new door of
+happiness is opened when you go out to hunt for something and discover
+it with your own eyes. But there is an experience even better than that.
+When you have stupidly forgotten (or despondently forgone) to look
+about you for the unclaimed treasures and unearned blessings which are
+scattered along the by-ways of life, then, sometimes by a special mercy,
+a small sample of them is quietly laid before you so that you cannot
+help seeing it, and it brings you back to a sense of the joyful
+possibilities of living.
+
+How full of enjoyment is the search after wild things,--wild birds, wild
+flowers, wild honey, wild berries! There was a country club on Storm
+King Mountain, above the Hudson River, where they used to celebrate a
+festival of flowers every spring. Men and women who had conservatories
+of their own, full of rare plants and costly orchids, came together
+to admire the gathered blossoms of the woodlands and meadows. But the
+people who had the best of the entertainment were the boys and girls who
+wandered through the thickets and down the brooks, pushed their way into
+the tangled copses and crept venturesomely across the swamps, to look
+for the flowers. Some of the seekers may have had a few gray hairs; but
+for that day at least they were all boys and girls. Nature was as young
+as ever, and they were all her children. Hand touched hand without a
+glove. The hidden blossoms of friendship unfolded. Laughter and merry
+shouts and snatches of half-forgotten song rose to the lips. Gay
+adventure sparkled in the air. School was out and nobody listened for
+the bell. It was just a day to live, and be natural, and take no thought
+for the morrow.
+
+There is great luck in this affair of looking for flowers. I do not see
+how any one who is prejudiced against games of chance can consistently
+undertake it.
+
+For my own part, I approve of garden flowers because they are so orderly
+and so certain; but wild flowers I love, just because there is so much
+chance about them. Nature is all in favour of certainty in great laws
+and of uncertainty in small events. You cannot appoint the day and the
+place for her flower-shows. If you happen to drop in at the right moment
+she will give you a free admission. But even then it seems as if the
+table of beauty had been spread for the joy of a higher visitor, and in
+obedience to secret orders which you have not heard.
+
+Have you ever found the fringed gentian?
+
+
+          "Just before the snows,
+     There came a purple creature
+      That lavished all the hill:
+     And summer hid her forehead,
+      And mockery was still.
+
+     The frosts were her condition:
+      The Tyrian would not come
+     Until the North evoked her,--
+      'Creator, shall I bloom?'"
+
+
+There are strange freaks of fortune in the finding of wild flowers,
+and curious coincidences which make us feel as if some one were playing
+friendly tricks on us. I remember reading, one evening in May, a passage
+in a good book called THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS, in which Colonel
+Higginson describes the singular luck that a friend of his enjoyed, year
+after year, in finding the rare blossoms of the double rueanemone. It
+seems that this man needed only to take a walk in the suburbs of any
+town, and he would come upon a bed of these flowers, without effort or
+design. I envied him his good fortune, for I had never discovered
+even one of them. But the next morning, as I strolled out to fish the
+Swiftwater, down below Billy Lerns's spring-house I found a green bank
+in the shadow of the wood all bespangled with tiny, trembling, twofold
+stars,--double rueanemones, for luck! It was a favourable omen, and that
+day I came home with a creel full of trout.
+
+The theory that Adam lived out in the woods for some time before he was
+put into the garden of Eden "to dress it and to keep it" has an air of
+probability. How else shall we account for the arboreal instincts that
+cling to his posterity?
+
+There is a wilding strain in our blood that all the civilization in the
+world will not eradicate. I never knew a real boy--or, for that matter,
+a girl worth knowing--who would not rather climb a tree, any day, than
+walk up a golden stairway.
+
+It is a touch of this instinct, I suppose, that makes it more delightful
+to fish in the most insignificant of free streams than in a carefully
+stocked and preserved pond, where the fish are brought up by hand and
+fed on minced liver. Such elaborate precautions to ensure good luck
+extract all the spice from the sport of angling. Casting the fly in such
+a pond, if you hooked a fish, you might expect to hear the keeper say,
+"Ah, that is Charles, we will play him and put him back, if you please,
+sir; for the master is very fond of him,"--or, "Now you have got hold of
+Edward; let us land him and keep him; he is three years old this month,
+and just ready to be eaten." It would seem like taking trout out of cold
+storage.
+
+Who could find any pleasure in angling for the tame carp in the
+fish-pool of Fontainebleau? They gather at the marble steps, those
+venerable, courtly fish, to receive their rations; and there are
+veterans among them, in ancient livery, with fringes of green moss on
+their shoulders, who could tell you pretty tales of being fed by the
+white hands of maids of honour, or even of nibbling their crumbs of
+bread from the jewelled fingers of a princess.
+
+There is no sport in bringing pets to the table. It may be necessary
+sometimes; but the true sportsman would always prefer to leave the
+unpleasant task of execution to menial hands, while he goes out into the
+wild country to capture his game by his own skill,--if he has good
+luck. I would rather run some risk in this enterprise (even as the young
+Tobias did, when the voracious pike sprang at him from the waters of the
+Tigris, and would have devoured him but for the friendly instruction
+of the piscatory Angel, who taught Tobias how to land the monster),--I
+would far rather take any number of chances in my sport than have it
+domesticated to the point of dulness.
+
+The trim plantations of trees which are called "forests" in certain
+parts of Europe--scientifically pruned and tended, counted every year by
+uniformed foresters, and defended against all possible depredations--are
+admirable and useful in their way; but they lack the mystic enchantment
+of the fragments of native woodland which linger among the Adirondacks
+and the White Mountains, or the vast, shaggy, sylvan wildernesses which
+hide the lakes and rivers of Canada. These Laurentian Hills lie in No
+Man's Land. Here you do not need to keep to the path, for there is none.
+You may make your own trail, whithersoever fancy leads you; and at night
+you may pitch your tent under any tree that looks friendly and firm.
+
+Here, if anywhere, you shall find Dryads, and Naiads, and Oreads. And
+if you chance to see one, by moonlight, combing her long hair beside
+the glimmering waterfall, or slipping silently, with gleaming shoulders,
+through the grove of silver birches, you may call her by the name that
+pleases you best. She is all your own discovery. There is no social
+directory in the wilderness.
+
+One side of our nature, no doubt, finds its satisfaction in the regular,
+the proper, the conventional. But there is another side of our
+nature, underneath, that takes delight in the strange, the free, the
+spontaneous. We like to discover what we call a law of Nature, and make
+our calculations about it, and harness the force which lies behind it
+for our own purposes. But we taste a different kind of joy when an
+event occurs which nobody has foreseen or counted upon. It seems like
+an evidence that there is something in the world which is alive and
+mysterious and untrammelled.
+
+The weather-prophet tells us of an approaching storm. It comes according
+to the programme. We admire the accuracy of the prediction, and
+congratulate ourselves that we have such a good meteorological service.
+But when, perchance, a bright, crystalline piece of weather arrives
+instead of the foretold tempest, do we not feel a secret sense of
+pleasure which goes beyond our mere comfort in the sunshine? The whole
+affair is not as easy as a sum in simple addition, after all,--at least
+not with our present knowledge. It is a good joke on the Weather Bureau.
+"Aha, Old Probabilities!" we say, "you don't know it all yet; there are
+still some chances to be taken!"
+
+Some day, I suppose, all things in the heavens above, and in the earth
+beneath, and in the hearts of the men and women who dwell between, will
+be investigated and explained. We shall live a perfectly ordered life,
+with no accidents, happy or unhappy. Everybody will act according to
+rule, and there will be no dotted lines on the map of human existence,
+no regions marked "unexplored." Perhaps that golden age of the machine
+will come, but you and I will hardly live to see it. And if that seems
+to you a matter for tears, you must do your own weeping, for I cannot
+find it in my heart to add a single drop of regret.
+
+The results of education and social discipline in humanity are fine. It
+is a good thing that we can count upon them. But at the same time let us
+rejoice in the play of native traits and individual vagaries. Cultivated
+manners are admirable, yet there is a sudden touch of inborn grace and
+courtesy that goes beyond them all. No array of accomplishments can
+rival the charm of an unsuspected gift of nature, brought suddenly to
+light. I once heard a peasant girl singing down the Traunthal, and the
+echo of her song outlives, in the hearing of my heart, all memories of
+the grand opera.
+
+The harvest of the gardens and the orchards, the result of prudent
+planting and patient cultivation, is full of satisfaction. We anticipate
+it in due season, and when it comes we fill our mouths and are grateful.
+But pray, kind Providence, let me slip over the fence out of the garden
+now and then, to shake a nut-tree that grows untended in the wood. Give
+me liberty to put off my black coat for a day, and go a-fishing on a
+free stream, and find by chance a wild strawberry.
+
+
+
+
+LOVERS AND LANDSCAPE
+
+
+"He insisted that the love that was of real value in the world was
+n't interesting, and that the love that was interesting was n't always
+admirable. Love that happened to a person like the measles or fits, and
+was really of no particular credit to itself or its victims, was the
+sort that got into the books and was made much of; whereas the kind that
+was attained by the endeavour of true souls, and that had wear in it,
+and that made things go right instead of tangling them up, was too much
+like duty to make satisfactory reading for people of sentiment."--E. S.
+MARTIN: My Cousin Anthony.
+
+
+The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is
+another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.
+
+The first day of spring is due to arrive, if the calendar does not break
+down, about the twenty-first of March, when the earth turns the corner
+of Sun Alley and starts for Summer Street. But the first spring day
+is not on the time-table at all. It comes when it is ready, and in the
+latitude of New York this is usually not till after All Fools' Day.
+
+About this time,--
+
+
+     "When chinks in April's windy dome
+      Let through a day of June,
+      And foot and thought incline to roam,
+      And every sound's a tune,"--
+
+
+it is the habit of the angler who lives in town to prepare for the
+labours of the approaching season by longer walks or bicycle-rides in
+the parks, or along the riverside, or in the somewhat demoralized
+Edens of the suburbs. In the course of these vernal peregrinations and
+circumrotations, I observe that lovers of various kinds begin to occupy
+a notable place in the landscape.
+
+The burnished dove puts a livelier iris around his neck, and practises
+fantastic bows and amourous quicksteps along the verandah of the
+pigeon-house and on every convenient roof. The young male of the human
+species, less gifted in the matter of rainbows, does his best with a
+gay cravat, and turns the thoughts which circulate above it towards the
+securing or propitiating of a best girl.
+
+The objects of these more or less brilliant attentions, doves and girls,
+show a becoming reciprocity, and act in a way which leads us to infer
+(so far as inferences hold good in the mysterious region of female
+conduct) that they are not seriously displeased. To a rightly tempered
+mind, pleasure is a pleasant sight. And the philosophic observer
+who could look upon this spring spectacle of the lovers with any but
+friendly feelings would be indeed what the great Dr. Samuel Johnson
+called "a person not to be envied."
+
+Far be it from me to fall into such a desiccated and supercilious mood.
+My small olive-branch of fancy will be withered, in truth, and ready to
+drop budless from the tree, when I cease to feel a mild delight in the
+billings and cooings of the little birds that separate from the
+flocks to fly together in pairs, or in the uninstructive but mutually
+satisfactory converse which Strephon holds with Chloe while they dally
+along the primrose path.
+
+I am glad that even the stony and tumultuous city affords some
+opportunities for these amiable observations. In the month of April
+there is hardly a clump of shrubbery in the Central Park which will not
+serve as a trysting-place for yellow warblers and catbirds just home
+from their southern tours. At the same time, you shall see many a bench,
+designed for the accommodation of six persons, occupied at the sunset
+hour by only two, and apparently so much too small for them that they
+cannot avoid a little crowding.
+
+These are infallible signs. Taken in conjunction with the eruption
+of tops and marbles among the small boys, and the purchase of
+fishing-tackle and golf-clubs by the old boys, they certify us that the
+vernal equinox has arrived, not only in the celestial regions, but also
+in the heart of man.
+
+
+I have been reflecting of late upon the relation of lovers to the
+landscape, and questioning whether art has given it quite the same place
+as that which belongs to it in nature. In fiction, for example, and in
+the drama, and in music, I have some vague misgivings that romantic love
+has come to hold a more prominent and a more permanent position than it
+fills in real life.
+
+This is dangerous ground to venture upon, even in the most modest and
+deprecatory way. The man who expresses an opinion, or even a doubt, on
+this subject, contrary to the ruling traditions, will have a swarm of
+angry critics buzzing about him. He will be called a heretic, a heathen,
+a cold-blooded freak of nature. As for the woman who hesitates to
+subscribe all the thirty-nine articles of romantic love, if such a one
+dares to put her reluctance into words, she is certain to be accused
+either of unwomanly ambition or of feminine disappointment.
+
+Let us make haste, then, to get back for safety to the ornithological
+aspect of the subject. Here there can be no penalties for heresy. And
+here I make bold to avow my conviction that the pairing season is not
+the only point of interest in the life of the birds; nor is the instinct
+by which they mate altogether and beyond comparison the noblest passion
+that stirs their feathered breasts.
+
+'T is true, the time of mating is their prettiest season; but it is very
+short. How little we should know of the drama of their airy life if we
+had eyes only for this brief scene! Their finest qualities come out
+in the patient cares that protect the young in the nest, in the varied
+struggles for existence through the changing year, and in the incredible
+heroisms of the annual migrations. Herein is a parable.
+
+It may be observed further, without fear of rebuke, that the behaviour
+of the different kinds of birds during the prevalence of romantic
+love is not always equally above reproach. The courtship of English
+sparrows--blustering, noisy, vulgar--is a sight to offend the taste
+of every gentle on-looker. Some birds reiterate and vociferate their
+love-songs in a fashion that displays their inconsiderateness as well as
+their ignorance of music. This trait is most marked in domestic fowls.
+There was a guinea-cock, once, that chose to do his wooing close under
+the window of a farm-house where I was lodged. He had no regard for
+my hours of sleep or meditation. His amatory click-clack prevented the
+morning and wrecked the tranquillity of the evening. It was odious,
+brutal,--worse, it was absolutely thoughtless. Herein is another
+parable.
+
+Let us admit cheerfully that lovers have a place in the landscape and
+lend a charm to it. This does not mean that they are to take up all
+the room there is. Suppose, for example, that a pair of them, on Goat
+Island, put themselves in such a position as to completely block out
+your view of Niagara. You cannot regard them with gratitude. They
+even become a little tedious. Or suppose that you are visiting at a
+country-house, and you find that you must not enjoy the moonlight on the
+verandah because Augustus and Amanda are murmuring in one corner, and
+that you must not go into the garden because Louis and Lizzie are there,
+and that you cannot have a sail on the lake because Richard and Rebecca
+have taken the boat.
+
+Of course, unless you happen to be a selfish old curmudgeon, you
+rejoice, by sympathy, in the happiness of these estimable young people.
+But you fail to see why it should cover so much ground.
+
+Why should they not pool their interests, and all go out in the boat, or
+all walk in the garden, or all sit on the verandah? Then there would be
+room for somebody else about the place.
+
+In old times you could rely upon lovers for retirement. But nowadays
+their role seems to be a bold ostentation of their condition. They rely
+upon other people to do the timid, shrinking part. Society, in America,
+is arranged principally for their convenience; and whatever portion of
+the landscape strikes their fancy, they preempt and occupy. All
+this goes upon the presumption that romantic love is really the only
+important interest in life.
+
+This train of thought was illuminated, the other night, by an incident
+which befell me at a party. It was an assembly of men, drawn together by
+their common devotion to the sport of canoeing. There were only three or
+four of the gentler sex present (as honorary members), and only one
+of whom it could be suspected that she was at that time a victim or an
+object of the tender passion. In the course of the evening, by way of
+diversion to our disputations on keels and centreboards, canvas and
+birch-bark, cedar-wood and bass-wood, paddles and steering-gear, a fine
+young Apollo, with a big, manly voice, sang us a few songs. But he did
+not chant the joys of weathering a sudden squall, or running a rapid
+feather-white with foam, or floating down a long, quiet, elm-bowered
+river. Not all. His songs were full of sighs and yearnings, languid lips
+and sheep's-eyes. His powerful voice informed us that crowns of thorns
+seemed like garlands of roses, and kisses were as sweet as samples of
+heaven, and various other curious sensations were experienced; and at
+the end of every stanza the reason was stated, in tones of thunder--
+
+
+     "Because I love you, dear."
+
+
+Even if true, it seemed inappropriate. How foolish the average
+audience in a drawing-room looks while it is listening to passionate
+love-ditties! And yet I suppose the singer chose these songs, not from
+any malice aforethought, but simply because songs of this kind are so
+abundant that it is next to impossible to find anything else in the
+shops.
+
+In regard to novels, the situation is almost as discouraging. Ten
+love-stories are printed to one of any other kind. We have a standing
+invitation to consider the tribulations and difficulties of some young
+man or young woman in finding a mate. It must be admitted that the
+subject has its capabilities of interest. Nature has her uses for the
+lover, and she gives him an excellent part to play in the drama of life.
+But is this tantamount to saying that his interest is perennial and
+all-absorbing, and that his role on the stage is the only one that is
+significant and noteworthy?
+
+Life is much too large to be expressed in the terms of a single passion.
+Friendship, patriotism, parental tenderness, filial devotion, the ardour
+of adventure, the thirst for knowledge, the ecstasy of religion,--these
+all have their dwelling in the heart of man. They mould character.
+They control conduct. They are stars of destiny shining in the inner
+firmament. And if art would truly hold the mirror up to nature, it must
+reflect these greater and lesser lights that rule the day and the night.
+
+How many of the plays that divert and misinform the modern theatre-goer
+turn on the pivot of a love-affair, not always pure, but generally
+simple! And how many of those that are imported from France proceed
+upon the theory that the Seventh is the only Commandment, and that the
+principal attraction of life lies in the opportunity of breaking it! The
+matinee-girl is not likely to have a very luminous or truthful idea of
+existence floating around in her pretty little head.
+
+But, after all, the great plays, those that take the deepest hold upon
+the heart, like HAMLET and KING LEAR, MACBETH and OTHELLO, are not
+love-plays. And the most charming comedies, like THE WINTER'S TALE, and
+THE RIVALS, and RIP VAN WINKLE, are chiefly memorable for other things
+than love-scenes.
+
+Even in novels, love shows at its best when it does not absorb the whole
+plot. LORNA DOONE is a lovers' story, but there is a blessed minimum of
+spooning in it, and always enough of working and fighting to keep the
+air clear and fresh. THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, and HYPATIA, and ROMOLA,
+and THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH, and JOHN INGLESANT, and THE THREE
+MUSKETEERS, and NOTRE DAME, and PEACE AND WAR, and QUO VADIS,--these are
+great novels because they are much more than tales of romantic love. As
+for HENRY ESMOND, (which seems to me the best of all,) certainly "love
+at first sight" does not play the finest role in that book.
+
+There are good stories of our own day--pathetic, humourous,
+entertaining, powerful--in which the element of romantic love is
+altogether subordinate, or even imperceptible. THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM
+does not owe its deep interest to the engagement of the very charming
+young people who enliven it. MADAME DELPHINE and OLE 'STRACTED are
+perfect stories of their kind. I would not barter THE JUNGLE BOOKS for a
+hundred of THE BRUSHWOOD BOY.
+
+The truth is that love, considered merely as the preference of one
+person for another of the opposite sex, is not "the greatest thing in
+the world." It becomes great only when it leads on, as it often does,
+to heroism and self-sacrifice and fidelity. Its chief value for art (the
+interpreter) lies not in itself, but in its quickening relation to the
+other elements of life. It must be seen and shown in its due proportion,
+and in harmony with the broader landscape.
+
+Do you believe that in all the world there is only one woman specially
+created for each man, and that the order of the universe will be
+hopelessly askew unless these two needles find each other in the
+haystack? You believe it for yourself, perhaps; but do you believe it
+for Tom Johnson? You remember what a terrific disturbance he made in the
+summer of 189-, at Bar Harbor, about Ellinor Brown, and how he ran away
+with her in September. You have also seen them together (occasionally)
+at Lenox and Newport, since their marriage. Are you honestly of the
+opinion that if Tom had not married Ellinor, these two young lives would
+have been a total wreck?
+
+Adam Smith, in his book on THE MORAL SENTIMENTS, goes so far as to say
+that "love is not interesting to the observer because it is AN AFFECTION
+OF THE IMAGINATION, into which it is difficult for a third party to
+enter." Something of the same kind occurred to me in regard to Tom and
+Ellinor. Yet I would not have presumed to suggest this thought to either
+of them. Nor would I have quoted in their hearing the melancholy and
+frigid prediction of Ralph Waldo Emerson, to the effect that they would
+some day discover "that all which at first drew them together--those
+once sacred features, that magical play of charm--was deciduous."
+
+DECIDUOUS, indeed? Cold, unpleasant, botanical word! Rather would I
+prognosticate for the lovers something perennial,
+
+
+     "A sober certainty of waking bliss,"
+
+
+to survive the evanescence of love's young dream. Ellinor should turn
+out to be a woman like the Lady Elizabeth Hastings, of whom Richard
+Steele wrote that "to love her was a liberal education." Tom should
+prove that he had in him the lasting stuff of a true man and a hero.
+Then it would make little difference whether their conjunction had been
+eternally prescribed in the book of fate or not. It would be evidently a
+fit match, made on earth and illustrative of heaven.
+
+But even in the making of such a match as this, the various stages of
+attraction, infatuation, and appropriation should not be displayed too
+prominently before the world, nor treated as events of overwhelming
+importance and enduring moment. I would not counsel Tom and Ellinor,
+in the midsummer of their engagement, to have their photographs taken
+together in affectionate attitudes.
+
+The pictures of an imaginary kind which deal with the subject of
+romantic love are, almost without exception, fatuous and futile. The
+inanely amatory, with their languishing eyes, weary us. The endlessly
+osculatory, with their protracted salutations, are sickening. Even when
+an air of sentimental propriety is thrown about them by some such title
+as "Wedded" or "The Honeymoon," they fatigue us. For the most part, they
+remind me of the remark which the Commodore made upon a certain painting
+of Jupiter and lo which hangs in the writing-room of the Contrary Club.
+
+"Sir," said that gently piercing critic, "that picture is equally
+unsatisfactory to the artist, to the moralist, and to the voluptuary."
+
+
+Nevertheless, having made a clean breast of my misgivings and
+reservations on the subject of lovers and landscape, I will now confess
+that the whole of my doubts do not weigh much against my unreasoned
+faith in romantic love. At heart I am no infidel, but a most obstinate
+believer and devotee. My seasons of skepticism are transient. They
+are connected with a torpid liver and aggravated by confinement to a
+sedentary life and enforced abstinence from angling. Out-of-doors, I
+return to a saner and happier frame of mind.
+
+As my wheel rolls along the Riverside Drive in the golden glow of the
+sunset, I rejoice that the episode of Charles Henry and Matilda Jane has
+not been omitted from the view. This vast and populous city, with all
+its passing show of life, would be little better than a waste, howling
+wilderness if we could not catch a glimpse, now and then, of young
+people falling in love in the good old-fashioned way. Even on a
+trout-stream, I have seen nothing prettier than the sight upon which I
+once came suddenly as I was fishing down the Neversink.
+
+A boy was kneeling beside the brook, and a girl was giving him a drink
+of water out of her rosy hands. They stared with wonder and compassion
+at the wet and solitary angler, wading down the stream, as if he were
+some kind of a mild lunatic. But as I glanced discreetly at their
+small tableau, I was not unconscious of the new joy that came into the
+landscape with the presence of
+
+
+     "A lover and his lass."
+
+
+I knew how sweet the water tasted from that kind of a cup. I also have
+lived in Arcadia, and have not forgotten the way back.
+
+
+
+
+A FATAL SUCCESS
+
+
+     "What surprises me in her behaviour," said he, "is its
+     thoroughness. Woman seldom does things by halves, but often
+     by doubles."
+
+     --SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ: The Life of Adam.
+
+
+Beekman De Peyster was probably the most passionate and triumphant
+fisherman in the Petrine Club. He angled with the same dash and
+confidence that he threw into his operations in the stock-market. He was
+sure to be the first man to get his flies on the water at the opening of
+the season. And when we came together for our fall meeting, to compare
+notes of our wanderings on various streams and make up the fish-stories
+for the year, Beekman was almost always "high hook." We expected, as
+a matter of course, to hear that he had taken the most and the largest
+fish.
+
+It was so with everything that he undertook. He was a masterful man.
+If there was an unusually large trout in a river, Beekman knew about it
+before any one else, and got there first, and came home with the fish.
+It did not make him unduly proud, because there was nothing uncommon
+about it. It was his habit to succeed, and all the rest of us were
+hardened to it.
+
+When he married Cornelia Cochrane, we were consoled for our partial loss
+by the apparent fitness and brilliancy of the match. If Beekman was a
+masterful man, Cornelia was certainly what you might call a mistressful
+woman. She had been the head of her house since she was eighteen years
+old. She carried her good looks like the family plate; and when she came
+into the breakfast-room and said good-morning, it was with an air as if
+she presented every one with a check for a thousand dollars. Her tastes
+were accepted as judgments, and her preferences had the force of laws.
+Wherever she wanted to go in the summer-time, there the finger of
+household destiny pointed. At Newport, at Bar Harbour, at Lenox, at
+Southampton, she made a record. When she was joined in holy wedlock to
+Beekman De Peyster, her father and mother heaved a sigh of satisfaction,
+and settled down for a quiet vacation in Cherry Valley.
+
+It was in the second summer after the wedding that Beekman admitted to
+a few of his ancient Petrine cronies, in moments of confidence
+(unjustifiable, but natural), that his wife had one fault.
+
+"It is not exactly a fault," he said, "not a positive fault, you know.
+It is just a kind of a defect, due to her education, of course. In
+everything else she's magnificent. But she does n't care for
+fishing. She says it's stupid,--can't see why any one should like the
+woods,--calls camping out the lunatic's diversion. It's rather awkward
+for a man with my habits to have his wife take such a view. But it can
+be changed by training. I intend to educate her and convert her. I shall
+make an angler of her yet."
+
+And so he did.
+
+The new education was begun in the Adirondacks, and the first lesson was
+given at Paul Smith's. It was a complete failure.
+
+Beekman persuaded her to come out with him for a day on Meacham River,
+and promised to convince her of the charm of angling. She wore a new
+gown, fawn-colour and violet, with a picture-hat, very taking. But the
+Meacham River trout was shy that day; not even Beekman could induce him
+to rise to the fly. What the trout lacked in confidence the mosquitoes
+more than made up. Mrs. De Peyster came home much sunburned, and
+expressed a highly unfavourable opinion of fishing as an amusement and
+of Meacham River as a resort.
+
+"The nice people don't come to the Adirondacks to fish," said she; "they
+come to talk about the fishing twenty years ago. Besides, what do you
+want to catch that trout for? If you do, the other men will say you
+bought it, and the hotel will have to put in a new one for the rest of
+the season."
+
+The following year Beekman tried Moosehead Lake. Here he found an
+atmosphere more favourable to his plan of education. There were a good
+many people who really fished, and short expeditions in the woods were
+quite fashionable. Cornelia had a camping-costume of the most approved
+style made by Dewlap on Fifth Avenue,--pearl-gray with linings of
+rose-silk,--and consented to go with her husband on a trip up Moose
+River. They pitched their tent the first evening at the mouth of Misery
+Stream, and a storm came on. The rain sifted through the canvas in a
+fine spray, and Mrs. De Peyster sat up all night in a waterproof cloak,
+holding an umbrella. The next day they were back at the hotel in time
+for lunch.
+
+"It was horrid," she told her most intimate friend, "perfectly horrid.
+The idea of sleeping in a shower-bath, and eating your breakfast from a
+tin plate, just for sake of catching a few silly fish! Why not send your
+guides out to get them for you?"
+
+But, in spite of this profession of obstinate heresy, Beekman observed
+with secret joy that there were signs, before the end of the
+season, that Cornelia was drifting a little, a very little but still
+perceptibly, in the direction of a change of heart. She began to take
+an interest, as the big trout came along in September, in the reports
+of the catches made by the different anglers. She would saunter out with
+the other people to the corner of the porch to see the fish weighed
+and spread out on the grass. Several times she went with Beekman in the
+canoe to Hardscrabble Point, and showed distinct evidences of pleasure
+when he caught large trout. The last day of the season, when he returned
+from a successful expedition to Roach River and Lily Bay, she inquired
+with some particularity about the results of his sport; and in the
+evening, as the company sat before the great open fire in the hall of
+the hotel, she was heard to use this information with considerable skill
+in putting down Mrs. Minot Peabody of Boston, who was recounting the
+details of her husband's catch at Spencer Pond. Cornelia was not a
+person to be contented with the back seat, even in fish-stories.
+
+When Beekman observed these indications he was much encouraged, and
+resolved to push his educational experiment briskly forward to his
+customary goal of success.
+
+"Some things can be done, as well as others," he said in his masterful
+way, as three of us were walking home together after the autumnal dinner
+of the Petrine Club, which he always attended as a graduate member. "A
+real fisherman never gives up. I told you I'd make an angler out of
+my wife; and so I will. It has been rather difficult. She is 'dour'
+in rising. But she's beginning to take notice of the fly now. Give me
+another season, and I'll have her landed."
+
+Good old Beekman! Little did he think--But I must not interrupt the
+story with moral reflections.
+
+The preparations that he made for his final effort at conversion were
+thorough and prudent. He had a private interview with Dewlap in regard
+to the construction of a practical fishing-costume for a lady, which
+resulted in something more reasonable and workmanlike than had ever been
+turned out by that famous artist. He ordered from Hook and Catchett a
+lady's angling-outfit of the most enticing description,--a split-bamboo
+rod, light as a girl's wish, and strong as a matron's will; an oxidized
+silver reel, with a monogram on one side, and a sapphire set in the
+handle for good luck; a book of flies, of all sizes and colours, with
+the correct names inscribed in gilt letters on each page. He surrounded
+his favourite sport with an aureole of elegance and beauty. And then he
+took Cornelia in September to the Upper Dam at Rangeley.
+
+She went reluctant. She arrived disgusted. She stayed incredulous. She
+returned--Wait a bit, and you shall hear how she returned.
+
+The Upper Dam at Rangeley is the place, of all others in the world,
+where the lunacy of angling may be seen in its incurable stage. There is
+a cosy little inn, called a camp, at the foot of a big lake. In front of
+the inn is a huge dam of gray stone, over which the river plunges into
+a great oval pool, where the trout assemble in the early fall to
+perpetuate their race. From the tenth of September to the thirtieth,
+there is not an hour of the day or night when there are no boats
+floating on that pool, and no anglers trailing the fly across its
+waters. Before the late fishermen are ready to come in at midnight, the
+early fishermen may be seen creeping down to the shore with lanterns
+in order to begin before cock-crow. The number of fish taken is
+not large,--perhaps five or six for the whole company on an average
+day,--but the size is sometimes enormous,--nothing under three pounds is
+counted,--and they pervade thought and conversation at the Upper Dam to
+the exclusion of every other subject. There is no driving, no dancing,
+no golf, no tennis. There is nothing to do but fish or die.
+
+At first, Cornelia thought she would choose the latter alternative.
+But a remark of that skilful and morose old angler, McTurk, which she
+overheard on the verandah after supper, changed her mind.
+
+"Women have no sporting instinct," said he. "They only fish because they
+see men doing it. They are imitative animals."
+
+That same night she told Beekman, in the subdued tone which the
+architectural construction of the house imposes upon all confidential
+communications in the bedrooms, but with resolution in every accent,
+that she proposed to go fishing with him on the morrow.
+
+"But not on that pool, right in front of the house, you understand.
+There must be some other place, out on the lake, where we can fish for
+three or four days, until I get the trick of this wobbly rod. Then I'll
+show that old bear, McTurk, what kind of an animal woman is."
+
+Beekman was simply delighted. Five days of diligent practice at the
+mouth of Mill Brook brought his pupil to the point where he pronounced
+her safe.
+
+"Of course," he said patronizingly, "you have 'nt learned all about it
+yet. That will take years. But you can get your fly out thirty feet, and
+you can keep the tip of your rod up. If you do that, the trout will hook
+himself, in rapid water, eight times out of ten. For playing him, if
+you follow my directions, you 'll be all right. We will try the pool
+tonight, and hope for a medium-sized fish."
+
+Cornelia said nothing, but smiled and nodded. She had her own thoughts.
+
+At about nine o'clock Saturday night, they anchored their boat on the
+edge of the shoal where the big eddy swings around, put out the lantern
+and began to fish. Beekman sat in the bow of the boat, with his rod over
+the left side; Cornelia in the stern, with her rod over the right side.
+The night was cloudy and very black. Each of them had put on the largest
+possible fly, one a "Bee-Pond" and the other a "Dragon;" but even these
+were invisible. They measured out the right length of line, and let
+the flies drift back until they hung over the shoal, in the curly water
+where the two currents meet.
+
+There were three other boats to the left of them. McTurk was their only
+neighbour in the darkness on the right. Once they heard him swearing
+softly to himself, and knew that he had hooked and lost a fish.
+
+Away down at the tail of the pool, dimly visible through the gloom, the
+furtive fisherman, Parsons, had anchored his boat. No noise ever came
+from that craft. If he wished to change his position, he did not pull
+up the anchor and let it down again with a bump. He simply lengthened or
+shortened his anchor rope. There was no click of the reel when he played
+a fish. He drew in and paid out the line through the rings by hand,
+without a sound. What he thought when a fish got away, no one knew,
+for he never said it. He concealed his angling as if it had been a
+conspiracy. Twice that night they heard a faint splash in the water
+near his boat, and twice they saw him put his arm over the side in the
+darkness and bring it back again very quietly.
+
+"That's the second fish for Parsons," whispered Beekman, "what a
+secretive old Fortunatus he is! He knows more about fishing than any man
+on the pool, and talks less."
+
+Cornelia did not answer. Her thoughts were all on the tip of her own
+rod. About eleven o'clock a fine, drizzling rain set in. The fishing was
+very slack. All the other boats gave it up in despair; but Cornelia said
+she wanted to stay out a little longer, they might as well finish up the
+week.
+
+At precisely fifty minutes past eleven, Beekman reeled up his line, and
+remarked with firmness that the holy Sabbath day was almost at hand and
+they ought to go in.
+
+"Not till I 've landed this trout," said Cornelia.
+
+"What? A trout! Have you got one?"
+
+"Certainly; I 've had him on for at least fifteen minutes. I 'm playing
+him Mr. Parsons' way. You might as well light the lantern and get the
+net ready; he's coming in towards the boat now."
+
+Beekman broke three matches before he made the lantern burn; and when he
+held it up over the gunwale, there was the trout sure enough, gleaming
+ghostly pale in the dark water, close to the boat, and quite tired out.
+He slipped the net over the fish and drew it in,--a monster.
+
+"I 'll carry that trout, if you please," said Cornelia, as they stepped
+out of the boat; and she walked into the camp, on the last stroke
+of midnight, with the fish in her hand, and quietly asked for the
+steelyard.
+
+Eight pounds and fourteen ounces,--that was the weight. Everybody was
+amazed. It was the "best fish" of the year. Cornelia showed no sign of
+exultation, until just as John was carrying the trout to the ice-house.
+Then she flashed out:--"Quite a fair imitation, Mr. McTurk,--is n't it?"
+
+Now McTurk's best record for the last fifteen years was seven pounds and
+twelve ounces.
+
+So far as McTurk is concerned, this is the end of the story. But not for
+the De Peysters. I wish it were. Beekman went to sleep that night with
+a contented spirit. He felt that his experiment in education had been a
+success. He had made his wife an angler.
+
+He had indeed, and to an extent which he little suspected. That Upper
+Dam trout was to her like the first taste of blood to the tiger. It
+seemed to change, at once, not so much her character as the direction
+of her vital energy. She yielded to the lunacy of angling, not by slow
+degrees, (as first a transient delusion, then a fixed idea, then a
+chronic infirmity, finally a mild insanity,) but by a sudden plunge into
+the most violent mania. So far from being ready to die at Upper Dam,
+her desire now was to live there--and to live solely for the sake of
+fishing--as long as the season was open.
+
+There were two hundred and forty hours left to midnight on the thirtieth
+of September. At least two hundred of these she spent on the pool; and
+when Beekman was too exhausted to manage the boat and the net and the
+lantern for her, she engaged a trustworthy guide to take Beekman's place
+while he slept. At the end of the last day her score was twenty-three,
+with an average of five pounds and a quarter. His score was nine, with
+an average of four pounds. He had succeeded far beyond his wildest
+hopes.
+
+The next year his success became even more astonishing. They went to the
+Titan Club in Canada. The ugliest and most inaccessible sheet of
+water in that territory is Lake Pharaoh. But it is famous for the
+extraordinary fishing at a certain spot near the outlet, where there
+is just room enough for one canoe. They camped on Lake Pharaoh for six
+weeks, by Mrs. De Peyster's command; and her canoe was always the first
+to reach the fishing-ground in the morning, and the last to leave it in
+the evening.
+
+Some one asked him, when he returned to the city, whether he had good
+luck.
+
+"Quite fair," he tossed off in a careless way; "we took over three
+hundred pounds."
+
+"To your own rod?" asked the inquirer, in admiration.
+
+"No-o-o," said Beekman, "there were two of us."
+
+There were two of them, also, the following year, when they joined the
+Natasheebo Salmon Club and fished that celebrated river in Labrador. The
+custom of drawing lots every night for the water that each member was
+to angle over the next day, seemed to be especially designed to fit the
+situation. Mrs. De Peyster could fish her own pool and her husband's
+too. The result of that year's fishing was something phenomenal. She had
+a score that made a paragraph in the newspapers and called out editorial
+comment. One editor was so inadequate to the situation as to entitle the
+article in which he described her triumph "The Equivalence of Woman." It
+was well-meant, but she was not at all pleased with it.
+
+She was now not merely an angler, but a "record" angler of the most
+virulent type. Wherever they went, she wanted, and she got, the pick
+of the water. She seemed to be equally at home on all kinds of streams,
+large and small. She would pursue the little mountain-brook trout in
+the early spring, and the Labrador salmon in July, and the huge speckled
+trout of the northern lakes in September, with the same avidity and
+resolution. All that she cared for was to get the best and the most of
+the fishing at each place where she angled. This she always did.
+
+And Beekman,--well, for him there were no more long separations from
+the partner of his life while he went off to fish some favourite stream.
+There were no more home-comings after a good day's sport to find her
+clad in cool and dainty raiment on the verandah, ready to welcome him
+with friendly badinage. There was not even any casting of the fly around
+Hardscrabble Point while she sat in the canoe reading a novel, looking
+up with mild and pleasant interest when he caught a larger fish than
+usual, as an older and wiser person looks at a child playing some
+innocent game. Those days of a divided interest between man and wife
+were gone. She was now fully converted, and more. Beekman and Cornelia
+were one; and she was the one.
+
+The last time I saw the De Peysters he was following her along the
+Beaverkill, carrying a landing-net and a basket, but no rod. She paused
+for a moment to exchange greetings, and then strode on down the stream.
+He lingered for a few minutes longer to light a pipe.
+
+"Well, old man," I said, "you certainly have succeeded in making an
+angler of Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"Yes, indeed," he answered,--"have n't I?" Then he continued, after a
+few thoughtful puffs of smoke, "Do you know, I 'm not quite so sure as I
+used to be that fishing is the best of all sports. I sometimes think of
+giving it up and going in for croquet."
+
+
+
+FISHING IN BOOKS
+
+
+     "SIMPSON.--Have you ever seen any American books on angling,
+     Fisher?"
+
+     "FISHER.--No, I do not think there are any published.
+     Brother Jonathan is not yet sufficiently civilized to
+     produce anything original on the gentle art.  There is good
+     trout-fishing in America, and the streams, which are all
+     free, are much less fished than in our Island, 'from the
+     small number of gentlemen,' as an American writer says, 'who
+     are at leisure to give their time to it.'"
+
+     --WILLIAM ANDREW CHATTO: The Angler's Souvenir (London,
+     1835).
+
+
+That wise man and accomplished scholar, Sir Henry Wotton, the friend of
+Izaak Walton and ambassador of King James I to the republic of Venice,
+was accustomed to say that "he would rather live five May months than
+forty Decembers." The reason for this preference was no secret to those
+who knew him. It had nothing to do with British or Venetian politics. It
+was simply because December, with all its domestic joys, is practically
+a dead month in the angler's calendar.
+
+His occupation is gone. The better sort of fish are out of season. The
+trout are lean and haggard: it is no trick to catch them and no treat to
+eat them. The salmon, all except the silly kelts, have run out to sea,
+and the place of their habitation no man knoweth. There is nothing
+for the angler to do but wait for the return of spring, and meanwhile
+encourage and sustain his patience with such small consolations in kind
+as a friendly Providence may put within his reach.
+
+
+Some solace may be found, on a day of crisp, wintry weather, in the
+childish diversion of catching pickerel through the ice. This method of
+taking fish is practised on a large scale and with elaborate machinery
+by men who supply the market. I speak not of their commercial enterprise
+and its gross equipage, but of ice-fishing in its more sportive and
+desultory form, as it is pursued by country boys and the incorrigible
+village idler.
+
+You choose for this pastime a pond where the ice is not too thick, lest
+the labour of cutting through should be discouraging; nor too thin, lest
+the chance of breaking in should be embarrassing. You then chop out,
+with almost any kind of a hatchet or pick, a number of holes in the ice,
+making each one six or eight inches in diameter, and placing them about
+five or six feet apart. If you happen to know the course of a current
+flowing through the pond, or the location of a shoal frequented by
+minnows, you will do well to keep near it. Over each hole you set a
+small contrivance called a "tilt-up." It consists of two sticks fastened
+in the middle, at right angles to each other. The stronger of the two is
+laid across the opening in the ice. The other is thus balanced above
+the aperture, with a baited hook and line attached to one end, while the
+other end is adorned with a little flag. For choice, I would have the
+flags red. They look gayer, and I imagine they are more lucky.
+
+When you have thus baited and set your tilt-ups,--twenty or thirty of
+them,--you may put on your skates and amuse yourself by gliding to
+and fro on the smooth surface of the ice, cutting figures of eight and
+grapevines and diamond twists, while you wait for the pickerel to begin
+their part of the performance. They will let you know when they are
+ready.
+
+A fish, swimming around in the dim depths under the ice, sees one of
+your baits, fancies it, and takes it in. The moment he tries to run away
+with it he tilts the little red flag into the air and waves it backward
+and forward. "Be quick!" he signals all unconsciously; "here I am; come
+and pull me up!"
+
+When two or three flags are fluttering at the same moment, far apart on
+the pond, you must skate with speed and haul in your lines promptly.
+
+How hard it is, sometimes, to decide which one you will take first! That
+flag in the middle of the pond has been waving for at least a minute;
+but the other, in the corner of the bay, is tilting up and down more
+violently: it must be a larger fish. Great Dagon! There's another red
+signal flying, away over by the point! You hesitate, you make a few
+strokes in one direction, then you whirl around and dart the other way.
+Meantime one of the tilt-ups, constructed with too short a cross-stick,
+has been pulled to one side, and disappears in the hole. One pickerel in
+the pond carries a flag. Another tilt-up ceases to move and falls flat
+upon the ice. The bait has been stolen. You dash desperately toward
+the third flag and pull in the only fish that is left,--probably the
+smallest of them all!
+
+A surplus of opportunities does not insure the best luck.
+
+A room with seven doors--like the famous apartment in Washington's
+headquarters at Newburgh--is an invitation to bewilderment. I would
+rather see one fair opening in life than be confused by three dazzling
+chances.
+
+There was a good story about fishing through the ice which formed part
+of the stock-in-conversation of that ingenious woodsman, Martin Moody,
+Esquire, of Big Tupper Lake. "'T was a blame cold day," he said, "and
+the lines friz up stiffer 'n a fence-wire, jus' as fast as I pulled 'em
+in, and my fingers got so dum' frosted I could n't bait the hooks. But
+the fish was thicker and hungrier 'n flies in June. So I jus' took
+a piece of bait and held it over one o' the holes. Every time a fish
+jumped up to git it, I 'd kick him out on the ice. I tell ye, sir, I
+kicked out more 'n four hundred pounds of pick'rel that morning. Yaas,
+'t was a big lot, I 'low, but then 't was a cold day! I jus' stacked 'em
+up solid, like cordwood."
+
+Let us now leave this frigid subject! Iced fishing is but a chilling and
+unsatisfactory imitation of real sport. The angler will soon turn from
+it with satiety, and seek a better consolation for the winter of his
+discontent in the entertainment of fishing in books.
+
+
+Angling is the only sport that boasts the honour of having given a
+classic to literature.
+
+Izaak Walton's success with THE COMPLEAT ANGLER was a fine illustration
+of fisherman's luck. He set out, with some aid from an adept in
+fly-fishing and cookery, named Thomas Barker, to produce a little
+"discourse of fish and fishing" which should serve as a useful manual
+for quiet persons inclined to follow the contemplative man's recreation.
+He came home with a book which has made his name beloved by ten
+generations of gentle readers, and given him a secure place in the
+Pantheon of letters,--not a haughty eminence, but a modest niche, all
+his own, and ever adorned with grateful offerings of fresh flowers.
+
+This was great luck. But it was well-deserved, and therefore it has not
+been grudged or envied.
+
+Walton was a man so peaceful and contented, so friendly in his
+disposition, and so innocent in all his goings, that only three other
+writers, so far as I know, have ever spoken ill of him.
+
+One was that sour-complexioned Cromwellian trooper, Richard Franck, who
+wrote in 1658 an envious book entitled NORTHERN MEMOIRS, CALCULATED FOR
+THE MERIDIAN OF SCOTLAND, ETC., TO WHICH IS ADDED THE CONTEMPLATIVE AND
+PRACTICAL ANGLER. In this book the furious Franck first pays Walton the
+flattery of imitation, and then further adorns him with abuse, calling
+THE COMPLEAT ANGLER "an indigested octavo, stuffed with morals from
+Dubravius and others," and more than hinting that the father of anglers
+knew little or nothing of "his uncultivated art." Walton was a Churchman
+and a Loyalist, you see, while Franck was a Commonwealth man and an
+Independent.
+
+The second detractor of Walton was Lord Byron, who wrote
+
+
+     "The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb in his gullet
+      Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it."
+
+
+But Byron is certainly a poor authority on the quality of mercy. His
+contempt need not cause an honest man overwhelming distress. I should
+call it a complimentary dislike.
+
+The third author who expressed unpleasant sentiments in regard to
+Walton was Leigh Hunt. Here, again, I fancy that partizan prejudice had
+something to do with the dislike. Hunt was a radical in politics and
+religion. Moreover there was a feline strain in his character, which
+made it necessary for him to scratch somebody now and then, as a relief
+to his feelings.
+
+Walton was a great quoter. His book is not "stuffed," as Franck
+jealously alleged, but it is certainly well sauced with piquant
+references to other writers, as early as the author of the Book of Job,
+and as late as John Dennys, who betrayed to the world THE SECRETS OF
+ANGLING in 1613. Walton further seasoned his book with fragments of
+information about fish and fishing, more or less apocryphal, gathered
+from Aelian, Pliny, Plutarch, Sir Francis Bacon, Dubravius, Gesner,
+Rondeletius, the learned Aldrovandus, the venerable Bede, the divine
+Du Bartas, and many others. He borrowed freely for the adornment of
+his discourse, and did not scorn to make use of what may be called
+LIVE QUOTATIONS,--that is to say, the unpublished remarks of his near
+contemporaries, caught in friendly conversation, or handed down by oral
+tradition.
+
+But these various seasonings did not disguise, they only enhanced, the
+delicate flavour of the dish which he served up to his readers. This was
+all of his own taking, and of a sweetness quite incomparable.
+
+I like a writer who is original enough to water his garden with
+quotations, without fear of being drowned out. Such men are Charles Lamb
+and James Russell Lowell and John Burroughs.
+
+Walton's book is as fresh as a handful of wild violets and sweet
+lavender. It breathes the odours of the green fields and the woods. It
+tastes of simple, homely, appetizing things like the "syllabub of new
+verjuice in a new-made haycock" which the milkwoman promised to give
+Piscator the next time he came that way. Its music plays the tune of A
+CONTENTED HEART over and over again without dulness, and charms us into
+harmony with
+
+
+     "A noise like the sound of a hidden brook
+      In the leafy month of June,
+      That to the sleeping woods all night
+      Singeth a quiet tune."
+
+
+Walton has been quoted even more than any of the writers whom he quotes.
+It would be difficult, even if it were not ungrateful, to write
+about angling without referring to him. Some pretty saying, some wise
+reflection from his pages, suggests itself at almost every turn of the
+subject.
+
+And yet his book, though it be the best, is not the only readable one
+that his favourite recreation has begotten. The literature of angling
+is extensive, as any one may see who will look at the list of the
+collection presented by Mr. John Bartlett to Harvard University, or
+study the catalogue of the piscatorial library of Mr. Dean Sage,
+of Albany, who himself has contributed an admirable book on THE
+RISTIGOUCHE.
+
+Nor is this literature altogether composed of dry and technical
+treatises, interesting only to the confirmed anglimaniac, or to the
+young novice ardent in pursuit of practical information. There is a good
+deal of juicy reading in it.
+
+
+Books about angling should be divided (according to De Quincey's method)
+into two classes,--the literature of knowledge, and the literature of
+power.
+
+The first class contains the handbooks on rods and tackle, the
+directions how to angle for different kinds of fish, and the guides to
+various fishing-resorts. The weakness of these books is that they soon
+fall out of date, as the manufacture of tackle is improved, the art
+of angling refined, and the fish in once-famous waters are educated or
+exterminated.
+
+Alas, how transient is the fashion of this world, even in angling! The
+old manuals with their precise instruction for trimming and painting
+trout-rods eighteen feet long, and their painful description of
+"oyntments" made of nettle-juice, fish-hawk oil, camphor, cat's fat, or
+assafoedita, (supposed to allure the fish,) are altogether behind the
+age. Many of the flies described by Charles Cotton and Thomas Barker
+seem to have gone out of style among the trout. Perhaps familiarity has
+bred contempt. Generation after generation of fish have seen these same
+old feathered confections floating on the water, and learned by sharp
+experience that they do not taste good. The blase trout demand something
+new, something modern. It is for this reason, I suppose, that an
+altogether original fly, unheard of, startling, will often do great
+execution in an over-fished pool.
+
+Certain it is that the art of angling, in settled regions, is growing
+more dainty and difficult. You must cast a longer, lighter line; you
+must use finer leaders; you must have your flies dressed on smaller
+hooks.
+
+And another thing is certain: in many places (described in the
+ancient volumes) where fish were once abundant, they are now like the
+shipwrecked sailors in Vergil his Aeneid,--
+
+
+     "rari nantes in gurgite vasto."
+
+
+The floods themselves are also disappearing. Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman
+was telling me, the other day, of the trout-brook that used to run
+through the Connecticut village when he nourished a poet's youth.
+He went back to visit the stream a few years since, and it was gone,
+literally vanished from the face of earth, stolen to make a watersupply
+for the town, and used for such base purposes as the washing of clothes
+and the sprinkling of streets.
+
+I remember an expedition with my father, some twenty years ago, to Nova
+Scotia, whither we set out to realize the hopes kindled by an ANGLER'S
+GUIDE written in the early sixties. It was like looking for tall clocks
+in the farmhouses around Boston. The harvest had been well gleaned
+before our arrival, and in the very place where our visionary author
+located his most famous catch we found a summer hotel and a sawmill.
+
+'T is strange and sad, how many regions there are where "the fishing was
+wonderful forty years ago"!
+
+
+The second class of angling books--the literature of power--includes
+all (even those written with some purpose of instruction) in which
+the gentle fascinations of the sport, the attractions of living
+out-of-doors, the beauties of stream and woodland, the recollections of
+happy adventure, and the cheerful thoughts that make the best of a day's
+luck, come clearly before the author's mind and find some fit expression
+in his words. Of such books, thank Heaven, there is a plenty to bring a
+Maytide charm and cheer into the fisherman's dull December. I will name,
+by way of random tribute from a grateful but unmethodical memory, a few
+of these consolatory volumes.
+
+First of all comes a family of books that were born in Scotland and
+smell of the heather.
+
+Whatever a Scotchman's conscience permits him to do, is likely to be
+done with vigour and a fiery mind. In trade and in theology, in fishing
+and in fighting, he is all there and thoroughly kindled.
+
+There is an old-fashioned book called THE MOOR AND THE LOCH, by John
+Colquhoun, which is full of contagious enthusiasm. Thomas Tod Stoddart
+was a most impassioned angler, (though over-given to strong language,)
+and in his ANGLING REMINISCENCES he has touched the subject with a happy
+hand,--happiest when he breaks into poetry and tosses out a song for the
+fisherman. Professor John Wilson of the University of Edinburgh held the
+chair of Moral Philosophy in that institution, but his true fame rests
+on his well-earned titles of A. M. and F. R. S.,--Master of Angling,
+and Fisherman Royal of Scotland. His RECREATIONS OF CHRISTOPHER NORTH,
+albeit their humour is sometimes too boisterously hammered in, are
+genial and generous essays, overflowing with passages of good-fellowship
+and pedestrian fancy. I would recommend any person in a dry and
+melancholy state of mind to read his paper on "Streams," in the first
+volume of ESSAYS CRITICAL AND IMAGINATIVE. But it must be said, by way
+of warning to those with whom dryness is a matter of principle, that all
+Scotch fishing-books are likely to be sprinkled with Highland Dew.
+
+Among English anglers, Sir Humphry Davy is one of whom Christopher
+North speaks rather slightingly. Nevertheless his SALMONIA is well worth
+reading, not only because it was written by a learned man, but because
+it exhales the spirit of cheerful piety and vital wisdom. Charles
+Kingsley was another great man who wrote well about angling. His
+CHALK-STREAM STUDIES are clear and sparkling. They cleanse the mind
+and refresh the heart and put us more in love with living. Of quite a
+different style are the MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR AN ANGLER, AND MISERIES OF
+FISHING, which were written by Richard Penn, a grandson of the founder
+of Pennsylvania. This is a curious and rare little volume, professing
+to be a compilation from the "Common Place Book of the Houghton Fishing
+Club," and dealing with the subject from a Pickwickian point of view.
+I suppose that William Penn would have thought his grandson a frivolous
+writer.
+
+But he could not have entertained such an opinion of the Honourable
+Robert Boyle, of whose OCCASIONAL REFLECTIONS no less than twelve
+discourses treat "of Angling Improved to Spiritual Uses." The titles
+of some of these discourses are quaint enough to quote. "Upon the being
+called upon to rise early on a very fair morning." "Upon the mounting,
+singing, and lighting of larks." "Upon fishing with a counterfeit fly."
+"Upon a danger arising from an unseasonable contest with the steersman."
+"Upon one's drinking water out of the brim of his hat." With such good
+texts it is easy to endure, and easier still to spare, the sermons.
+
+Englishmen carry their love of travel into their anglimania, and many of
+their books describe fishing adventures in foreign parts. RAMBLES WITH
+A FISHING-ROD, by E. S. Roscoe, tells of happy days in the Salzkammergut
+and the Bavarian Highlands and Normandy. FISH-TAILS AND A FEW OTHERS, by
+Bradnock Hall, contains some delightful chapters on Norway. THE ROD IN
+INDIA, by H. S. Thomas, narrates wonderful adventures with the Mahseer
+and the Rohu and other pagan fish.
+
+But, after all, I like the English angler best when he travels at home,
+and writes of dry-fly fishing in the Itchen or the Test, or of wet-fly
+fishing in Northumberland or Sutherlandshire. There is a fascinating
+booklet that appeared quietly, some years ago, called AN AMATEUR
+ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE DALE. It runs as easily and merrily and kindly
+as a little river, full of peace and pure enjoyment. Other books of the
+same quality have since been written by the same pen,--DAYS IN CLOVER,
+FRESH WOODS, BY MEADOW AND STREAM. It is no secret, I believe, that
+the author is Mr. Edward Marston, the senior member of a London
+publishing-house. But he still clings to his retiring pen-name of "The
+Amateur Angler," and represents himself, by a graceful fiction, as all
+unskilled in the art. An instance of similar modesty is found in Mr.
+Andrew Lang, who entitles the first chapter of his delightful
+ANGLING SKETCHES (without which no fisherman's library is complete),
+"Confessions of a Duffer." This an engaging liberty which no one else
+would dare to take.
+
+The best English fish-story pure and simple, that I know, is "Crocker's
+Hole," by H. D. Black-more, the creator of LORNA DOONE.
+
+Let us turn now to American books about angling. Of these the merciful
+dispensations of Providence have brought forth no small store since Mr.
+William Andrew Chatto made the ill-natured remark which is pilloried at
+the head of this chapter. By the way, it seems that Mr. Chatto had never
+heard of "The Schuylkill Fishing Company," which was founded on that
+romantic stream near Philadelphia in 1732, nor seen the AUTHENTIC
+HISTORICAL MEMOIR of that celebrated and amusing society.
+
+I am sorry for the man who cannot find pleasure in reading the appendix
+of THE AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK, by Thaddeus Norris; or the discursive
+pages of Frank Forester's FISH AND FISHING; or the introduction and
+notes of that unexcelled edition of Walton which was made by the
+Reverend Doctor George W. Bethune; or SUPERIOR FISHING and GAME FISH OF
+THE NORTH, by Mr. Robert B. Roosevelt; or Henshall's BOOK OF THE BLACK
+BASS; or the admirable disgressions of Mr. Henry P. Wells, in his
+FLY-RODS AND FLY-TACKLE, and THE AMERICAN SALMON ANGLER. Dr. William C.
+Prime has never put his profound knowledge of the art of angling into a
+manual of technical instruction; but he has written of the delights of
+the sport in OWL CREEK LETTERS, and in I GO A-FISHING, and in some of
+the chapters of ALONG NEW ENGLAND ROADS and AMONG NEW ENGLAND HILLS,
+with a persuasive skill that has created many new anglers, and made
+many old ones grateful. It is a fitting coincidence of heredity that his
+niece, Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson, is the author of the most tender and
+pathetic of all angling stories, FISHIN' JIMMY.
+
+
+But it is not only in books written altogether from his peculiar point
+of view and to humour his harmless insanity, that the angler may find
+pleasant reading about his favourite pastime. There are excellent bits
+of fishing scattered all through the field of good literature. It seems
+as if almost all the men who could write well had a friendly feeling for
+the contemplative sport.
+
+Plutarch, in THE LIVES OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS AND ROMANS, tells a capital
+fish-story of the manner in which the Egyptian Cleopatra fooled that
+far-famed Roman wight, Marc Antony, when they were angling together on
+the Nile. As I recall it, from a perusal in early boyhood, Antony was
+having very bad luck indeed; in fact he had taken nothing, and was sadly
+put out about it. Cleopatra, thinking to get a rise out of him, secretly
+told one of her attendants to dive over the opposite side of the barge
+and fasten a salt fish to the Roman general's hook. The attendant was
+much pleased with this commission, and, having executed it, proceeded to
+add a fine stroke of his own; for when he had made the fish fast on the
+hook, he gave a great pull to the line and held on tightly. Antony was
+much excited and began to haul violently at his tackle.
+
+"By Jupiter!" he exclaimed, "it was long in coming, but I have a
+colossal bite now."
+
+"Have a care," said Cleopatra, laughing behind her sunshade, "or he will
+drag you into the water. You must give him line when he pulls hard."
+
+"Not a denarius will I give!" rudely responded Antony. "I mean to have
+this halibut or Hades!"
+
+At this moment the man under the boat, being out of breath, let the line
+go, and Antony, falling backward, drew up the salted herring.
+
+"Take that fish off the hook, Palinurus," he proudly said. "It is not
+as large as I thought, but it looks like the oldest one that has been
+caught to-day."
+
+Such, in effect, is the tale narrated by the veracious Plutarch. And
+if any careful critic wishes to verify my quotation from memory, he may
+compare it with the proper page of Langhorne's translation; I think it
+is in the second volume, near the end.
+
+Sir Walter Scott, who once described himself as
+
+
+     "No fisher,
+      But a well-wisher
+      To the game,"
+
+
+has an amusing passage of angling in the third chapter of REDGAUNTLET.
+Darsie Latimer is relating his adventures in Dumfriesshire. "By the
+way," says he, "old Cotton's instructions, by which I hoped to qualify
+myself for the gentle society of anglers, are not worth a farthing for
+this meridian. I learned this by mere accident, after I had waited four
+mortal hours. I shall never forget an impudent urchin, a cowherd, about
+twelve years old, without either brogue or bonnet, barelegged, with a
+very indifferent pair of breeches,--how the villain grinned in scorn at
+my landing-net, my plummet, and the gorgeous jury of flies which I had
+assembled to destroy all the fish in the river. I was induced at last to
+lend the rod to the sneering scoundrel, to see what he would make of it;
+and he not only half-filled my basket in an hour, but literally taught
+me to kill two trouts with my own hand."
+
+Thus ancient and well-authenticated is the superstition of the angling
+powers of the barefooted country-boy,--in fiction.
+
+Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, in that valuable but over-capitalized book,
+MY NOVEL, makes use of Fishing for Allegorical Purposes. The episode of
+John Burley and the One-eyed Perch not only points a Moral but adorns
+the Tale.
+
+In the works of R. D. Blackmore, angling plays a less instructive but a
+pleasanter part. It is closely interwoven with love. There is a magical
+description of trout-fishing on a meadow-brook in ALICE LORRAINE. And
+who that has read LORNA DOONE, (pity for the man or woman that knows not
+the delight of that book!) can ever forget how young John Ridd dared
+his way up the gliddery water-slide, after loaches, and found Lorna in a
+fair green meadow adorned with flowers, at the top of the brook?
+
+I made a little journey into the Doone Country once, just to see that
+brook and to fish in it. The stream looked smaller, and the water-slide
+less terrible, than they seemed in the book. But it was a mighty pretty
+place after all; and I suppose that even John Ridd, when he came back to
+it in after years, found it shrunken a little.
+
+All the streams were larger in our boyhood than they are now, except,
+perhaps, that which flows from the sweetest spring of all, the fountain
+of love, which John Ridd discovered beside the Bagworthy River,--and I,
+on the willow-shaded banks of the Patapsco, where the Baltimore girls
+fish for gudgeons,--and you? Come, gentle reader, is there no stream
+whose name is musical to you, because of a hidden spring of love that
+you once found on its shore? The waters of that fountain never fail, and
+in them alone we taste the undiminished fulness of immortal youth.
+
+The stories of William Black are enlivened with fish, and he knew,
+better than most men, how they should be taken. Whenever he wanted to
+get two young people engaged to each other, all other devices failing,
+he sent them out to angle together. If it had not been for fishing,
+everything in A PRINCESS OF THULE and WHITE HEATHER would have gone
+wrong.
+
+But even men who have been disappointed in love may angle for solace or
+diversion. I have known some old bachelors who fished excellently well;
+and others I have known who could find, and give, much pleasure in a day
+on the stream, though they had no skill in the sport. Of this class was
+Washington Irving, with an extract from whose SKETCH BOOK I will bring
+this rambling dissertation to an end.
+
+"Our first essay," says he, "was along a mountain brook among the
+highlands of the Hudson; a most unfortunate place for the execution of
+those piscatory tactics which had been invented along the velvet margins
+of quiet English rivulets. It was one of those wild streams that lavish,
+among our romantic solitudes, unheeded beauties enough to fill the
+sketch-book of a hunter of the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap down
+rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which the trees threw their
+broad balancing sprays, and long nameless weeds hung in fringes from the
+impending banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it would brawl
+and fret along a ravine in the matted shade of a forest, filling it with
+murmurs; and, after this termagant career, would steal forth into open
+day, with the most placid, demure face imaginable; as I have seen some
+pestilent shrew of a housewife, after filling her home with uproar and
+ill-humour, come dimpling out of doors, swimming and courtesying, and
+smiling upon all the world.
+
+"How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide, at such times, through
+some bosom of green meadow-land among the mountains, where the quiet
+was only interrupted by the occasional tinkling of a bell from the lazy
+cattle among the clover, or the sound of a woodcutter's axe from the
+neighbouring forest!
+
+"For my part, I was always a bungler at all kinds of sport that required
+either patience or adroitness, and had not angled above half an hour
+before I had completely 'satisfied the sentiment,' and convinced myself
+of the truth of Izaak Walton's opinion, that angling is something like
+poetry,--a man must be born to it. I hooked myself instead of the fish;
+tangled my line in every tree; lost my bait; broke my rod; until I gave
+up the attempt in despair, and passed the day under the trees, reading
+old Izaak, satisfied that it was his fascinating vein of honest
+simplicity and rural feeling that had bewitched me, and not the passion
+for angling."
+
+
+
+
+A NORWEGIAN HONEYMOON
+
+
+     "The best rose-bush, after all, is not that which has the
+     fewest thorns, but that which bears the finest roses."
+
+     --SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ: The Life of Adam.
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was not all unadulterated sweetness, of course. There were enough
+difficulties in the way to make it seem desirable; and a few stings
+of annoyance, now and then, lent piquancy to the adventure. But a good
+memory, in dealing with the past, has the art of straining out all the
+beeswax of discomfort, and storing up little jars of pure hydromel. As
+we look back at our six weeks in Norway, we agree that no period of our
+partnership in experimental honeymooning has yielded more honey to the
+same amount of comb.
+
+Several considerations led us to the resolve of taking our honeymoon
+experimentally rather than chronologically. We started from the
+self-evident proposition that it ought to be the happiest time in
+married life.
+
+"It is perfectly ridiculous," said my lady Graygown, "to suppose that
+a thing like that can be fixed by the calendar. It may possibly fall in
+the first month after the wedding, but it is not likely. Just think how
+slightly two people know each other when they get married. They are
+in love, of course, but that is not at all the same as being well
+acquainted. Sometimes the more love, the less acquaintance! And
+sometimes the more acquaintance, the less love! Besides, at first there
+are always the notes of thanks for the wedding-presents to be written,
+and the letters of congratulation to be answered, and it is awfully hard
+to make each one sound a little different from the others and perfectly
+natural. Then, you know, everybody seems to suspect you of the folly of
+being newly married. You run across your friends everywhere, and they
+grin when they see you. You can't help feeling as if a lot of people
+were watching you through opera-glasses, or taking snap-shots at you
+with a kodak. It is absurd to imagine that the first month must be the
+real honeymoon. And just suppose it were,--what bad luck that would be!
+What would there be to look forward to?"
+
+Every word that fell from her lips seemed to me like the wisdom of
+Diotima.
+
+"You are right," I cried; "Portia could not hold a candle to you for
+clear argument. Besides, suppose two people are imprudent enough to get
+married in the first week of December, as we did!--what becomes of the
+chronological honeymoon then? There is no fishing in December, and all
+the rivers of Paradise, at least in our latitude, are frozen up. No, my
+lady, we will discover our month of honey by the empirical method. Each
+year we will set out together to seek it in a solitude for two; and we
+will compare notes on moons, and strike the final balance when we are
+sure that our happiest experiment has been completed."
+
+We are not sure of that, even yet. We are still engaged, as a committee
+of two, in our philosophical investigation, and we decline to make
+anything but a report of progress. We know more now than we did when we
+first went honeymooning in the city of Washington. For one thing, we are
+certain that not even the far-famed rosemary-fields of Narbonne, or
+the fragrant hillsides of the Corbieres, yield a sweeter harvest to the
+busy-ness of the bees than the Norwegian meadows and mountain-slopes
+yielded to our idleness in the summer of 1888.
+
+
+II
+
+
+The rural landscape of Norway, on the long easterly slope that leads up
+to the watershed among the mountains of the western coast, is not unlike
+that of Vermont or New Hampshire. The railway from Christiania to the
+Randsfjord carried us through a hilly country of scattered farms and
+villages. Wood played a prominent part in the scenery. There were dark
+stretches of forest on the hilltops and in the valleys; rivers filled
+with floating logs; sawmills beside the waterfalls; wooden farmhouses
+painted white; and rail-fences around the fields. The people seemed
+sturdy, prosperous, independent. They had the familiar habit of coming
+down to the station to see the train arrive and depart. We might have
+fancied ourselves on a journey through the Connecticut valley, if it had
+not been for the soft sing-song of the Norwegian speech and the uniform
+politeness of the railway officials.
+
+What a room that was in the inn at Randsfjord where we spent our first
+night out! Vast, bare, primitive, with eight windows to admit the
+persistent nocturnal twilight; a sea-like floor of blue-painted boards,
+unbroken by a single island of carpet; and a castellated stove in one
+corner: an apartment for giants, with two little beds for dwarfs on
+opposite shores of the ocean. There was no telephone; so we arranged
+a system of communication with a fishing-line, to make sure that
+the sleepy partner should be awake in time for the early boat in the
+morning.
+
+The journey up the lake took seven hours, and reminded us of a voyage
+on Lake George; placid, picturesque, and pervaded by summer boarders.
+Somewhere on the way we had lunch, and were well fortified to take the
+road when the steamboat landed us at Odnaes, at the head of the lake,
+about two o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+There are several methods in which you may drive through Norway. The
+government maintains posting-stations at the farms along the main
+travelled highways, where you can hire horses and carriages of various
+kinds. There are also English tourist agencies which make a business of
+providing travellers with complete transportation. You may try either of
+these methods alone, or you may make a judicious mixture.
+
+Thus, by an application of the theory of permutations and combinations,
+you have your choice among four ways of accomplishing a driving-tour.
+First, you may engage a carriage and pair, with a driver, from one of
+the tourist agencies, and roll through your journey in sedentary case,
+provided your horses do not go lame or give out. Second, you may rely
+altogether upon the posting-stations to send you on your journey; and
+this is a very pleasant, lively way, provided there is not a crowd
+of travellers on the road before you, who take up all the comfortable
+conveyances and leave you nothing but a jolting cart or a ramshackle
+KARIOL of the time of St. Olaf. Third, you may rent an easy-riding
+vehicle (by choice a well-hung gig) for the entire trip, and change
+ponies at the stations as you drive along; this is the safest way. The
+fourth method is to hire your horseflesh at the beginning for the whole
+journey, and pick up your vehicles from place to place. This method is
+theoretically possible, but I do not know any one who has tried it.
+
+Our gig was waiting for us at Odnaes. There was a brisk little
+mouse-coloured pony in the shafts; and it took but a moment to strap our
+leather portmanteau on the board at the back, perch the postboy on top
+of it, and set out for our first experience of a Norwegian driving-tour.
+
+The road at first was level and easy; and we bowled along smoothly
+through the valley of the Etnaelv, among drooping birch-trees and green
+fields where the larks were singing. At Tomlevolden, ten miles farther
+on, we reached the first station, a comfortable old farmhouse, with a
+great array of wooden outbuildings. Here we had a chance to try our
+luck with the Norwegian language in demanding "en hest, saa straxt som
+muligt." This was what the guide-book told us to say when we wanted a
+horse.
+
+There is great fun in making a random cast on the surface of a strange
+language. You cannot tell what will come up. It is like an experiment in
+witchcraft. We should not have been at all surprised, I must confess, if
+our preliminary incantation had brought forth a cow or a basket of eggs.
+
+But the good people seemed to divine our intentions; and while we were
+waiting for one of the stable-boys to catch and harness the new horse, a
+yellow-haired maiden inquired, in very fair English, if we would not be
+pleased to have a cup of tea and some butter-bread; which we did with
+great comfort.
+
+The SKYDSGUT, or so-called postboy, for the next stage of the journey,
+was a full-grown man of considerable weight. As he climbed to his perch
+on our portmanteau, my lady Graygown congratulated me on the prudence
+which had provided that one side of that receptacle should be of an
+inflexible stiffness, quite incapable of being crushed; otherwise, asked
+she, what would have become of her Sunday frock under the pressure of
+this stern necessity of a postboy?
+
+But I think we should not have cared very much if all our luggage had
+been smashed on this journey, for the road now began to ascend, and the
+views over the Etnadal, with its winding river, were of a breadth and
+sweetness most consoling. Up and up we went, curving in and out through
+the forest, crossing wild ravines and shadowy dells, looking back at
+every turn on the wide landscape bathed in golden light. At the station
+of Sveen, where we changed horse and postboy again, it was already
+evening. The sun was down, but the mystical radiance of the northern
+twilight illumined the sky. The dark fir-woods spread around us, and
+their odourous breath was diffused through the cool, still air. We were
+crossing the level summit of the plateau, twenty-three hundred feet
+above the sea. Two tiny woodland lakes gleamed out among the trees. Then
+the road began to slope gently towards the west, and emerged suddenly
+on the edge of the forest, looking out over the long, lovely vale of
+Valders, with snow-touched mountains on the horizon, and the river
+Baegna shimmering along its bed, a thousand feet below us.
+
+What a heart-enlarging outlook! What a keen joy of motion, as the wheels
+rolled down the long incline, and the sure-footed pony swung between the
+shafts and rattled his hoofs merrily on the hard road! What long,
+deep breaths of silent pleasure in the crisp night air! What wondrous
+mingling of lights in the afterglow of sunset, and the primrose bloom
+of the first stars, and faint foregleamings of the rising moon creeping
+over the hill behind us! What perfection of companionship without words,
+as we rode together through a strange land, along the edge of the dark!
+
+When we finished the thirty-fifth mile, and drew up in the courtyard of
+the station at Frydenlund, Graygown sprang out, with a little sigh of
+regret.
+
+"Is it last night," she cried, "or to-morrow morning? I have n't the
+least idea what time it is; it seems as if we had been travelling in
+eternity."
+
+"It is just ten o'clock," I answered, "and the landlord says there will
+be a hot supper of trout ready for us in five minutes."
+
+It would be vain to attempt to give a daily record of the whole
+journey in which we made this fair beginning. It was a most idle and
+unsystematic pilgrimage. We wandered up and down, and turned aside when
+fancy beckoned. Sometimes we hurried on as fast as the horses would
+carry us, driving sixty or seventy miles a day; sometimes we loitered
+and dawdled, as if we did not care whether we got anywhere or not. If a
+place pleased us, we stayed and tried the fishing. If we were tired of
+driving, we took to the water, and travelled by steamer along a fjord,
+or hired a rowboat to cross from point to point. One day we would be in
+a good little hotel, with polyglot guests, and serving-maids in stagey
+Norse costumes,--like the famous inn at Stalheim, which commands the
+amazing panorama of the Naerodal. Another day we would lodge in a plain
+farmhouse like the station at Nedre Vasenden, where eggs and fish were
+the staples of diet, and the farmer's daughter wore the picturesque
+peasants' dress, with its tall cap, without any dramatic airs. Lakes
+and rivers, precipices and gorges, waterfalls and glaciers and snowy
+mountains were our daily repast. We drove over five hundred miles in
+various kinds of open wagons, KARIOLS for one, and STOLKJAERRES for
+two, after we had left our comfortable gig behind us. We saw the ancient
+dragon-gabled church of Burgund; and the delightful, showery town of
+Bergen; and the gloomy cliffs of the Geiranger-Fjord laced with filmy
+cataracts; and the bewitched crags of the Romsdal; and the wide,
+desolate landscape of Jerkin; and a hundred other unforgotten scenes.
+Somehow or other we went, (around and about, and up and down, now
+on wheels, and now on foot, and now in a boat,) all the way from
+Christiania to Throndhjem. My lady Graygown could give you the exact
+itinerary, for she has been well brought up, and always keeps a diary.
+All I know is, that we set out from one city and arrived at the other,
+and we gathered by the way a collection of instantaneous photographs.
+I am going to turn them over now, and pick out a few of the clearest
+pictures.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Here is the bridge over the Naeselv at Fagernaes. Just below it is a
+good pool for trout, but the river is broad and deep and swift. It is
+difficult wading to get out within reach of the fish. I have taken half
+a dozen small ones and come to the end of my cast. There is a big one
+lying out in the middle of the river, I am sure. But the water already
+rises to my hips; another step will bring it over the top of my waders,
+and send me downstream feet uppermost.
+
+"Take care!" cries Graygown from the grassy bank, where she sits
+placidly crocheting some mysterious fabric of white yarn.
+
+She does not see the large rock lying at the bottom of the river just
+beyond me. If I can step on that, and stand there without being swept
+away, I can reach the mid-current with my flies. It is a long stride
+and a slippery foothold, but by good luck "the last step which costs" is
+accomplished. The tiny black and orange hackle goes curling out over the
+stream, lights softly, and swings around with the current, folding
+and expanding its feathers as if it were alive. The big trout takes
+it promptly the instant it passes over him; and I play him and net him
+without moving from my perilous perch.
+
+Graygown waves her crochet-work like a flag, "Bravo!" she cries. "That's
+a beauty, nearly two pounds! But do be careful about coming back; you
+are not good enough to take any risks yet."
+
+
+The station at Skogstad is a solitary farmhouse lying far up on the
+bare hillside, with its barns and out-buildings grouped around a central
+courtyard, like a rude fortress. The river travels along the valley
+below, now wrestling its way through a narrow passage among the rocks,
+now spreading out at leisure in a green meadow. As we cross the bridge,
+the crystal water is changed to opal by the sunset glow, and a gentle
+breeze ruffles the long pools, and the trout are rising freely. It is
+the perfect hour for fishing. Would Graygown dare to drive on alone to
+the gate of the fortress, and blow upon the long horn which doubtless
+hangs beside it, and demand admittance and a lodging, "in the name of
+the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress,"--while I angle down the
+river a mile or so?
+
+Certainly she would. What door is there in Europe at which the American
+girl is afraid to knock? "But wait a moment. How do you ask for fried
+chicken and pancakes in Norwegian? KYLLING OG PANDEKAGE? How fierce it
+sounds! All right now. Run along and fish."
+
+The river welcomes me like an old friend. The tune that it sings is the
+same that the flowing water repeats all around the world. Not otherwise
+do the lively rapids carry the familiar air, and the larger falls drone
+out a burly bass, along the west branch of the Penobscot, or down the
+valley of the Bouquet. But here there are no forests to conceal the
+course of the stream. It lies as free to the view as a child's thought.
+As I follow on from pool to pool, picking out a good trout here and
+there, now from a rocky corner edged with foam, now from a swift
+gravelly run, now from a snug hiding-place that the current has hollowed
+out beneath the bank, all the way I can see the fortress far above me on
+the hillside.
+
+I am as sure that it has already surrendered to Graygown as if I could
+discern her white banner of crochet-work floating from the battlements.
+
+Just before dark, I climb the hill with a heavy basket of fish. The
+castle gate is open. The scent of chicken and pancakes salutes the weary
+pilgrim. In a cosy little parlour, adorned with fluffy mats and pictures
+framed in pine-cones, lit by a hanging lamp with glass pendants,
+sits the mistress of the occasion, calmly triumphant and plying her
+crochet-needle.
+
+There is something mysterious about a woman's fancy-work. It seems
+to have all the soothing charm of the tobacco-plant, without its
+inconveniences. Just to see her tranquillity, while she relaxes her mind
+and busies her fingers with a bit of tatting or embroidery or crochet,
+gives me a sense of being domesticated, a "homey" feeling, anywhere in
+the wide world.
+
+
+If you ever go to Norway, you must be sure to see the Loenvand. You can
+set out from the comfortable hotel at Faleide, go up the Indvik Fjord
+in a rowboat, cross over a two-mile hill on foot or by carriage, spend a
+happy day on the lake, and return to your inn in time for a late supper.
+The lake is perhaps the most beautiful in Norway. Long and narrow, it
+lies like a priceless emerald of palest green, hidden and guarded by
+jealous mountains. It is fed by huge glaciers, which hang over the
+shoulders of the hills like ragged cloaks of ice.
+
+As we row along the shore, trolling in vain for the trout that live in
+the ice-cold water, fragments of the tattered cloth-of-silver far above
+us, on the opposite side, are loosened by the touch of the summer
+sun, and fall from the precipice. They drift downward, at first,
+as noiselessly as thistledowns; then they strike the rocks and come
+crashing towards the lake with the hollow roar of an avalanche.
+
+At the head of the lake we find ourselves in an enormous amphitheatre
+of mountains. Glaciers are peering down upon us. Snow-fields glare at us
+with glistening eyes. Black crags seem to bend above us with an eternal
+frown. Streamers of foam float from the forehead of the hills and the
+lips of the dark ravines. But there is a little river of cold, pure
+water flowing from one of the rivers of ice, and a pleasant shelter of
+young trees and bushes growing among the debris of shattered rocks; and
+there we build our camp-fire and eat our lunch.
+
+Hunger is a most impudent appetite. It makes a man forget all the
+proprieties. What place is there so lofty, so awful, that he will not
+dare to sit down in it and partake of food? Even on the side of Mount
+Sinai, the elders of Israel spread their out-of-door table, "and did eat
+and drink."
+
+
+I see the Tarn of the Elk at this moment, just as it looked in the clear
+sunlight of that August afternoon, ten years ago. Far down in a hollow
+of the desolate hills it nestles, four thousand feet above the sea. The
+moorland trail hangs high above it, and, though it is a mile away, every
+curve of the treeless shore, every shoal and reef in the light green
+water is clearly visible. With a powerful field-glass one can almost see
+the large trout for which the pond is famous.
+
+The shelter-hut on the bank is built of rough gray stones, and the roof
+is leaky to the light as well as to the weather. But there are two beds
+in it, one for my guide and one for me; and a practicable fireplace,
+which is soon filled with a blaze of comfort. There is also a random
+library of novels, which former fishermen have thoughtfully left behind
+them. I like strong reading in the wilderness. Give me a story with
+plenty of danger and wholesome fighting in it,--"The Three Musketeers,"
+or "Treasure Island," or "The Afghan's Knife." Intricate studies of
+social dilemmas and tales of mild philandering seem bloodless and
+insipid.
+
+The trout in the Tarn of the Elk are large, undoubtedly, but they are
+also few in number and shy in disposition. Either some of the peasants
+have been fishing over them with the deadly "otter," or else they
+belong to that variety of the trout family known as TRUTTA DAMNOSA,--the
+species which you can see but cannot take. We watched these aggravating
+fish playing on the surface at sunset; we saw them dart beneath our boat
+in the early morning; but not until a driving snowstorm set in, about
+noon of the second day, did we succeed in persuading any of them to take
+the fly. Then they rose, for a couple of hours, with amiable perversity.
+I caught five, weighing between two and four pounds each, and stopped
+because my hands were so numb that I could cast no longer.
+
+Now for a long tramp over the hills and home. Yes, home; for yonder in
+the white house at Drivstuen, with fuchsias and geraniums blooming in
+the windows, and a pretty, friendly Norse girl to keep her company, my
+lady is waiting for me. See, she comes running out to the door, in the
+gathering dusk, with a red flower in her hair, and hails me with the
+fisherman's greeting. WHAT LUCK?
+
+Well, THIS luck, at all events! I can show you a few good fish, and sit
+down with you to a supper of reindeer-venison and a quiet evening of
+music and talk.
+
+
+Shall I forget thee, hospitable Stuefloten, dearest to our memory of all
+the rustic stations in Norway? There are no stars beside thy name in the
+pages of Baedeker. But in the book of our hearts a whole constellation
+is thine.
+
+The long, low, white farmhouse stands on a green hill at the head of
+the Romsdal. A flourishing crop of grass and flowers grows on the
+stable-roof, and there is a little belfry with a big bell to call the
+labourers home from the fields. In the corner of the living-room of the
+old house there is a broad fireplace built across the angle. Curious
+cupboards are tucked away everywhere. The long table in the dining-room
+groans thrice a day with generous fare. There are as many kinds of hot
+bread as in a Virginia country-house; the cream is thick enough to
+make a spoon stand up in amazement; once, at dinner, we sat embarrassed
+before six different varieties of pudding.
+
+In the evening, when the saffron light is beginning to fade, we go out
+and walk in the road before the house, looking down the long mystical
+vale of the Rauma, or up to the purple western hills from which the
+clear streams of the Ulvaa flow to meet us.
+
+Above Stuefloten the Rauma lingers and meanders through a smoother and
+more open valley, with broad beds of gravel and flowery meadows. Here
+the trout and grayling grow fat and lusty, and here we angle for them,
+day after day, in water so crystalline that when one steps into the
+stream one hardly knows whether to expect a depth of six inches or six
+feet.
+
+Tiny English flies and leaders of gossamer are the tackle for such water
+in midsummer. With this delicate outfit, and with a light hand and
+a long line, one may easily outfish the native angler, and fill a
+twelve-pound basket every fair day. I remember an old Norwegian, an
+inveterate fisherman, whose footmarks we saw ahead of us on the stream
+all through an afternoon. Footmarks I call them; and so they were,
+literally, for there were only the prints of a single foot to be seen
+on the banks of sand, and between them, a series of small, round, deep
+holes.
+
+"What kind of a bird made those marks, Frederik?" I asked my faithful
+guide.
+
+"That is old Pedersen," he said, "with his wooden leg. He makes a dot
+after every step. We shall catch him in a little while."
+
+Sure enough, about six o'clock we saw him standing on a grassy point,
+hurling his line, with a fat worm on the end of it, far across the
+stream, and letting it drift down with the current. But the water was
+too fine for that style of fishing, and the poor old fellow had but a
+half dozen little fish. My creel was already overflowing, so I emptied
+out all of the grayling into his bag, and went on up the river to
+complete my tale of trout before dark.
+
+And when the fishing is over, there is Graygown with the wagon, waiting
+at the appointed place under the trees, beside the road. The sturdy
+white pony trots gayly homeward. The pale yellow stars blossom out above
+the hills again, as they did on that first night when we were driving
+down into the Valders. Frederik leans over the back of the seat, telling
+us marvellous tales, in his broken English, of the fishing in a certain
+lake among the mountains, and of the reindeer-shooting on the fjeld
+beyond it.
+
+"It is sad that you go to-morrow," says he "but you come back another
+year, I think, to fish in that lake, and to shoot those reindeer."
+
+Yes, Frederik, we are coming back to Norway some day, perhaps,--who can
+tell? It is one of the hundred places that we are vaguely planning to
+revisit. For, though we did not see the midnight sun there, we saw the
+honeymoon most distinctly. And it was bright enough to take pictures by
+its light.
+
+
+
+
+WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS?
+
+
+"My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that ultimately the
+sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall become, as
+it were, interwoven into man's existence. He shall take from all their
+beauty and enjoy their glory."--RICHARD JEFFERIES: The Life of the
+Fields.
+
+
+It was the little lad that asked the question; and the answer also, as
+you will see, was mainly his.
+
+We had been keeping Sunday afternoon together in our favourite fashion,
+following out that pleasant text which tells us to "behold the fowls
+of the air." There is no injunction of Holy Writ less burdensome in
+acceptance, or more profitable in obedience, than this easy out-of-doors
+commandment. For several hours we walked in the way of this precept,
+through the untangled woods that lie behind the Forest Hills Lodge,
+where a pair of pigeon-hawks had their nest; and around the
+brambly shores of the small pond, where Maryland yellow-throats and
+song-sparrows were settled; and under the lofty hemlocks of the fragment
+of forest across the road, where rare warblers flitted silently among
+the tree-tops. The light beneath the evergreens was growing dim as we
+came out from their shadow into the widespread glow of the sunset,
+on the edge of a grassy hill, overlooking the long valley of the Gale
+River, and uplooking to the Franconia Mountains.
+
+It was the benediction hour. The placid air of the day shed a new
+tranquillity over the consoling landscape. The heart of the earth
+seemed to taste a repose more perfect than that of common days.
+A hermit-thrush, far up the vale, sang his vesper hymn; while the
+swallows, seeking their evening meal, circled above the river-fields
+without an effort, twittering softly, now and then, as if they must give
+thanks. Slight and indefinable touches in the scene, perhaps the mere
+absence of the tiny human figures passing along the road or labouring in
+the distant meadows, perhaps the blue curls of smoke rising lazily
+from the farmhouse chimneys, or the family groups sitting under the
+maple-trees before the door, diffused a sabbath atmosphere over the
+world.
+
+Then said the lad, lying on the grass beside me, "Father, who owns the
+mountains?"
+
+I happened to have heard, the day before, of two or three lumber
+companies that had bought some of the woodland slopes; so I told him
+their names, adding that there were probably a good many different
+owners, whose claims taken all together would cover the whole Franconia
+range of hills.
+
+"Well," answered the lad, after a moment of silence, "I don't see what
+difference that makes. Everybody can look at them."
+
+They lay stretched out before us in the level sunlight, the sharp peaks
+outlined against the sky, the vast ridges of forest sinking smoothly
+towards the valleys, the deep hollows gathering purple shadows in their
+bosoms, and the little foothills standing out in rounded promontories of
+brighter green from the darker mass behind them.
+
+Far to the east, the long comb of Twin Mountain extended itself back
+into the untrodden wilderness. Mount Garfield lifted a clear-cut
+pyramid through the translucent air. The huge bulk of Lafayette ascended
+majestically in front of us, crowned with a rosy diadem of rocks. Eagle
+Cliff and Bald Mountain stretched their line of scalloped peaks across
+the entrance to the Notch. Beyond that shadowy vale, the swelling
+summits of Cannon Mountain rolled away to meet the tumbling waves of
+Kinsman, dominated by one loftier crested billow that seemed almost
+ready to curl and break out of green silence into snowy foam. Far down
+the sleeping Landaff valley the undulating dome of Moosilauke trembled
+in the distant blue.
+
+They were all ours, from crested cliff to wooded base. The solemn groves
+of firs and spruces, the plumed sierras of lofty pines, the stately
+pillared forests of birch and beech, the wild ravines, the tremulous
+thickets of silvery poplar, the bare peaks with their wide outlooks, and
+the cool vales resounding with the ceaseless song of little rivers,--we
+knew and loved them all; they ministered peace and joy to us; they were
+all ours, though we held no title deeds and our ownership had never been
+recorded.
+
+What is property, after all? The law says there are two kinds, real and
+personal. But it seems to me that the only real property is that which
+is truly personal, that which we take into our inner life and make our
+own forever, by understanding and admiration and sympathy and love. This
+is the only kind of possession that is worth anything.
+
+A gallery of great paintings adorns the house of the Honourable Midas
+Bond, and every year adds a new treasure to his collection. He knows
+how much they cost him, and he keeps the run of the quotations at the
+auction sales, congratulating himself as the price of the works of
+his well-chosen artists rises in the scale, and the value of his art
+treasures is enhanced. But why should he call them his? He is only their
+custodian. He keeps them well varnished, and framed in gilt. But he
+never passes through those gilded frames into the world of beauty that
+lies behind the painted canvas. He knows nothing of those lovely places
+from which the artist's soul and hand have drawn their inspiration. They
+are closed and barred to him. He has bought the pictures, but he cannot
+buy the key. The poor art student who wanders through his gallery,
+lingering with awe and love before the masterpieces, owns them far more
+truly than Midas does.
+
+Pomposus Silverman purchased a rich library a few years ago. The books
+were rare and costly. That was the reason why Pomposus bought them. He
+was proud to feel that he was the possessor of literary treasures which
+were not to be found in the houses of his wealthiest acquaintances.
+But the threadbare Bucherfreund, who was engaged at a slender salary to
+catalogue the library and take care of it, became the real proprietor.
+Pomposus paid for the books, but Bucherfreund enjoyed them.
+
+I do not mean to say that the possession of much money is always a
+barrier to real wealth of mind and heart. Nor would I maintain that all
+the poor of this world are rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. But
+some of them are. And if some of the rich of this world (through the
+grace of Him with whom all things are possible) are also modest in their
+tastes, and gentle in their hearts, and open in their minds, and ready
+to be pleased with unbought pleasures, they simply share in the best
+things which are provided for all.
+
+I speak not now of the strife that men wage over the definition and
+the laws of property. Doubtless there is much here that needs to be set
+right. There are men and women in the world who are shut out from the
+right to earn a living, so poor that they must perish for want of daily
+bread, so full of misery that there is no room for the tiniest seed of
+joy in their lives. This is the lingering shame of civilization. Some
+day, perhaps, we shall find the way to banish it. Some day, every
+man shall have his title to a share in the world's great work and the
+world's large joy.
+
+But meantime it is certain that, where there are a hundred poor bodies
+who suffer from physical privation, there are a thousand poor souls who
+suffer from spiritual poverty. To relive this greater suffering there
+needs no change of laws, only a change of heart.
+
+What does it profit a man to be the landed proprietor of countless acres
+unless he can reap the harvest of delight that blooms from every rood of
+God's earth for the seeing eye and the loving spirit? And who can reap
+that harvest so closely that there shall not be abundant gleaning left
+for all mankind? The most that a wide estate can yield to its legal
+owner is a living. But the real owner can gather from a field of
+goldenrod, shining in the August sunlight, an unearned increment of
+delight.
+
+We measure success by accumulation. The measure is false. The true
+measure is appreciation. He who loves most has most.
+
+How foolishly we train ourselves for the work of life! We give our most
+arduous and eager efforts to the cultivation of those faculties which
+will serve us in the competitions of the forum and the market-place.
+But if we were wise, we should care infinitely more for the unfolding of
+those inward, secret, spiritual powers by which alone we can become
+the owners of anything that is worth having. Surely God is the
+great proprietor. Yet all His works He has given away. He holds no
+title-deeds. The one thing that is His, is the perfect understanding,
+the perfect joy, the perfect love, of all things that He has made. To
+a share in this high ownership He welcomes all who are poor in spirit.
+This is the earth which the meek inherit. This is the patrimony of the
+saints in light.
+
+"Come, laddie," I said to my comrade, "let us go home. You and I are
+very rich. We own the mountains. But we can never sell them, and we
+don't want to."
+
+
+
+
+A LAZY, IDLE BROOK
+
+
+     "Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only
+     to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.
+     And it is not by any means certain that a man's business is
+     the most important thing he has to do."
+
+     --ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: An Apology for Idlers.
+
+
+
+
+I. A CASUAL INTRODUCTION
+
+
+On the South Shore of Long Island, all things incline to a natural
+somnolence. There are no ambitious mountains, no braggart cliffs, no
+hasty torrents, no hustling waterfalls in that land,
+
+
+   "In which it seemeth always afternoon."
+
+
+The salt meadows sleep in the summer sun; the farms and market-gardens
+yield a placid harvest to a race of singularly unhurried tillers of the
+soil; the low hills rise with gentle slopes, not caring to get too high
+in the world, only far enough to catch a pleasant glimpse of the sea and
+a breath of fresh air; the very trees grow leisurely, as if they felt
+that they had "all the time there is." And from this dreamy land, close
+as it lies to the unresting ocean, the tumult of the breakers and the
+foam of ever-turning tides are shut off by the languid lagoons of the
+Great South Bay and a long range of dunes, crested with wire-grass,
+bay-bushes, and wild-roses.
+
+In such a country you could not expect a little brook to be noisy,
+fussy, energetic. If it were not lazy, it would be out of keeping.
+
+But the actual and undisguised idleness of this particular brook was
+another affair, and one in which it was distinguished among its fellows.
+For almost all the other little rivers of the South Shore, lazy as they
+may be by nature, yet manage to do some kind of work before they finish
+the journey from their crystal-clear springs into the brackish waters
+of the bay. They turn the wheels of sleepy gristmills, while the miller
+sits with his hands in his pockets underneath the willow-trees. They
+fill reservoirs out of which great steam-engines pump the water to
+quench the thirst of Brooklyn. Even the smaller streams tarry long
+enough in their seaward sauntering to irrigate a few cranberry-bogs
+and so provide that savoury sauce which makes the Long Island turkey a
+fitter subject for Thanksgiving.
+
+But this brook of which I speak did none of these useful things. It was
+absolutely out of business.
+
+There was not a mill, nor a reservoir, nor a cranberry-bog, on all its
+course of a short mile. The only profitable affair it ever undertook was
+to fill a small ice-pond near its entrance into the Great South Bay.
+You could hardly call this a very energetic enterprise. It amounted to
+little more than a good-natured consent to allow itself to be used by
+the winter for the making of ice, if the winter happened to be cold
+enough. Even this passive industry came to nothing; for the water, being
+separated from the bay only by a short tideway under a wooden bridge on
+the south country road, was too brackish to freeze easily; and the ice,
+being pervaded with weeds, was not much relished by the public. So the
+wooden ice-house, innocent of paint, and toned by the weather to a soft,
+sad-coloured gray, stood like an improvised ruin among the pine-trees
+beside the pond.
+
+It was through this unharvested ice-pond, this fallow field of water,
+that my lady Graygown and I entered on acquaintance with our lazy, idle
+brook. We had a house, that summer, a few miles down the bay. But it was
+a very small house, and the room that we like best was out of doors.
+So we spent much time in a sailboat,--by name "The Patience,"--making
+voyages of exploration into watery corners and byways. Sailing past the
+wooden bridge one day, when a strong east wind had made a very low
+tide, we observed the water flowing out beneath the road with an eddying
+current. We were interested to discover where such a stream came from.
+But the sailboat could not go under the bridge, nor even make a landing
+on the shore without risk of getting aground. The next day we came back
+in a rowboat to follow the clue of curiosity. The tide was high now, and
+we passed with the reversed current under the bridge, almost bumping our
+heads against the timbers. Emerging upon the pond, we rowed across its
+shallow, weed-encumbered waters, and were introduced without ceremony to
+one of the most agreeable brooks that we had ever met.
+
+It was quite broad where it came into the pond,--a hundred feet from
+side to side,--bordered with flags and rushes and feathery meadow
+grasses. The real channel meandered in sweeping curves from bank to
+bank, and the water, except in the swifter current, was filled with an
+amazing quantity of some aquatic moss. The woods came straggling down on
+either shore. There were fallen trees in the stream here and there. On
+one of the points an old swamp-maple, with its decrepit branches and its
+leaves already touched with the hectic colours of decay, hung far out
+over the water which was undermining it, looking and leaning downward,
+like an aged man who bends, half-sadly and half-willingly, towards the
+grave.
+
+But for the most part the brook lay wide open to the sky, and the tide,
+rising and sinking somewhat irregularly in the pond below, made curious
+alternations in its depth and in the swiftness of its current. For about
+half a mile we navigated this lazy little river, and then we found
+that rowing would carry us no farther, for we came to a place where the
+stream issued with a livelier flood from an archway in a thicket.
+
+This woodland portal was not more than four feet wide, and the branches
+of the small trees were closely interwoven overhead. We shipped the oars
+and took one of them for a paddle. Stooping down, we pushed the boat
+through the archway and found ourselves in the Fairy Dell. It was a
+long, narrow bower, perhaps four hundred feet from end to end, with the
+brook dancing through it in a joyous, musical flow over a bed of clean
+yellow sand and white pebbles. There were deep places in the curves
+where you could hardly touch bottom with an oar, and shallow places
+in the straight runs where the boat would barely float. Not a ray
+of unbroken sunlight leaked through the green roof of this winding
+corridor; and all along the sides there were delicate mosses and tall
+ferns and wildwood flowers that love the shade.
+
+At the upper end of the bower our progress in the boat was barred by a
+low bridge, on a forgotten road that wound through the pine-woods. Here
+I left my lady Graygown, seated on the shady corner of the bridge with a
+book, swinging her feet over the stream, while I set out to explore its
+further course. Above the wood-road there were no more fairy dells, nor
+easy-going estuaries. The water came down through the most complicated
+piece of underbrush that I have ever encountered. Alders and swamp
+maples and pussy-willows and gray birches grew together in a wild
+confusion. Blackberry bushes and fox-grapes and cat-briers trailed and
+twisted themselves in an incredible tangle. There was only one way to
+advance, and that was to wade in the middle of the brook, stooping low,
+lifting up the pendulous alder-branches, threading a tortuous course,
+now under and now over the innumerable obstacles, as a darning-needle is
+pushed in and out through the yarn of a woollen stocking.
+
+It was dark and lonely in that difficult passage. The brook divided into
+many channels, turning this way and that way, as if it were lost in the
+woods. There were huge clumps of OSMUNDA REGALIS spreading their fronds
+in tropical profusion. Mouldering logs were covered with moss. The water
+gurgled slowly into deep corners under the banks. Catbirds and blue
+jays fluttered screaming from the thickets. Cotton-tailed rabbits darted
+away, showing the white flag of fear. Once I thought I saw the fuscous
+gleam of a red fox stealing silently through the brush. It would have
+been no surprise to hear the bark of a raccoon, or see the eyes of a
+wildcat gleaming through the leaves.
+
+For more than an hour I was pushing my way through this miniature
+wilderness of half a mile; and then I emerged suddenly, to find myself
+face to face with--a railroad embankment and the afternoon express, with
+its parlour-cars, thundering down to Southampton!
+
+It was a strange and startling contrast. The explorer's joy, the sense
+of adventure, the feeling of wildness and freedom, withered and crumpled
+somewhat preposterously at the sight of the parlour-cars. My scratched
+hands and wet boots and torn coat seemed unkempt and disreputable.
+Perhaps some of the well-dressed people looking out at the windows
+of the train were the friends with whom we were to dine on Saturday.
+BATECHE! What would they say to such a costume as mine? What did I care
+what they said!
+
+But, all the same, it was a shock, a disenchantment, to find that
+civilization, with all its absurdities and conventionalities, was so
+threateningly close to my new-found wilderness. My first enthusiasm was
+not a little chilled as I walked back, along an open woodland path, to
+the bridge where Graygown was placidly reading. Reading, I say, though
+her book was closed, and her brown eyes were wandering over the green
+leaves of the thicket, and the white clouds drifting, drifting lazily
+across the blue deep of the sky.
+
+
+
+
+II. A BETTER ACQUAINTANCE
+
+
+On the voyage home, she gently talked me out of my disappointment, and
+into a wiser frame of mind.
+
+It was a surprise, of course, she admitted, to find that our wilderness
+was so little, and to discover the trail of a parlour-car on the edge
+of Paradise. But why not turn the surprise around, and make it pleasant
+instead of disagreeable? Why not look at the contrast from the side that
+we liked best?
+
+It was not necessary that everybody should take the same view of life
+that pleased us. The world would not get on very well without people
+who preferred parlour-cars to canoes, and patent-leather shoes to
+India-rubber boots, and ten-course dinners to picnics in the woods.
+These good people were unconsciously toiling at the hard and necessary
+work of life in order that we, of the chosen and fortunate few, should
+be at liberty to enjoy the best things in the world.
+
+Why should we neglect our opportunities, which were also our real
+duties? The nervous disease of civilization might prevail all around
+us, but that ought not to destroy our grateful enjoyment of the lucid
+intervals that were granted to us by a merciful Providence.
+
+Why should we not take this little untamed brook, running its humble
+course through the borders of civilized life and midway between two
+flourishing summer resorts,--a brook without a single house or a
+cultivated field on its banks, as free and beautiful and secluded as if
+it flowed through miles of trackless forest,--why not take this brook as
+a sign that the ordering of the universe had a "good intention" even for
+inveterate idlers, and that the great Arranger of the world felt some
+kindness for such gipsy-hearts as ours? What law, human or divine, was
+there to prevent us from making this stream our symbol of deliverance
+from the conventional and commonplace, our guide to liberty and a quiet
+mind?
+
+So reasoned Graygown with her
+
+
+          "most silver flow
+     Of subtle-paced counsel in distress."
+
+
+And, according to her word, so did we. That lazy, idle brook became to
+us one of the best of friends; the pathfinder of happiness on many a
+bright summer day; and, through long vacations, the faithful encourager
+of indolence.
+
+Indolence in the proper sense of the word, you understand. The meaning
+which is commonly given to it, as Archbishop Trench pointed out in his
+suggestive book about WORDS AND THEIR USES, is altogether false. To
+speak of indolence as if it were a vice is just a great big verbal
+slander.
+
+Indolence is a virtue. It comes from two Latin words, which mean freedom
+from anxiety or grief. And that is a wholesome state of mind. There are
+times and seasons when it is even a pious and blessed state of mind. Not
+to be in a hurry; not to be ambitious or jealous or resentful; not
+to feel envious of anybody; not to fret about to-day nor worry about
+to-morrow,--that is the way we ought all to feel at some time in our
+lives; and that is the kind of indolence in which our brook faithfully
+encouraged us.
+
+'T is an age in which such encouragement is greatly needed. We have
+fallen so much into the habit of being always busy that we know not how
+nor when to break it off with firmness. Our business tags after us into
+the midst of our pleasures, and we are ill at ease beyond reach of the
+telegraph and the daily newspaper. We agitate ourselves amazingly
+about a multitude of affairs,--the politics of Europe, the state of the
+weather all around the globe, the marriages and festivities of very rich
+people, and the latest novelties in crime, none of which are of vital
+interest to us. The more earnest souls among us are cultivating
+a vicious tendency to Summer Schools, and Seaside Institutes of
+Philosophy, and Mountaintop Seminaries of Modern Languages.
+
+We toil assiduously to cram something more into those scrap-bags of
+knowledge which we fondly call our minds. Seldom do we rest tranquil
+long enough to find out whether there is anything in them already that
+is of real value,--any native feeling, any original thought, which would
+like to come out and sun itself for a while in quiet.
+
+For my part, I am sure that I stand more in need of a deeper sense of
+contentment with life than of a knowledge of the Bulgarian tongue, and
+that all the paradoxes of Hegel would not do me so much good as one hour
+of vital sympathy with the careless play of children. The Marquis du
+Paty de l'Huitre may espouse the daughter and heiress of the Honourable
+James Bulger with all imaginable pomp, if he will. CA NE M'INTRIGUE
+POINT DU TOUT. I would rather stretch myself out on the grass and watch
+yonder pair of kingbirds carrying luscious flies to their young ones in
+the nest, or chasing away the marauding crow with shrill cries of anger.
+
+What a pretty battle it is, and in a good cause, too! Waste no pity on
+that big black ruffian. He is a villain and a thief, an egg-stealer, an
+ogre, a devourer of unfledged innocents. The kingbirds are not afraid of
+him, knowing that he is a coward at heart. They fly upon him, now from
+below, now from above. They buffet him from one side and from the other.
+They circle round him like a pair of swift gunboats round an antiquated
+man-of-war. They even perch upon his back and dash their beaks into
+his neck and pluck feathers from his piratical plumage. At last his
+lumbering flight has carried him far enough away, and the brave little
+defenders fly back to the nest, poising above it on quivering wings for
+a moment, then dipping down swiftly in pursuit of some passing insect.
+The war is over. Courage has had its turn. Now tenderness comes into
+play. The young birds, all ignorant of the passing danger, but always
+conscious of an insatiable hunger, are uttering loud remonstrances and
+plaintive demands for food. Domestic life begins again, and they that
+sow not, neither gather into barns, are fed.
+
+
+Do you suppose that this wondrous stage of earth was set, and all the
+myriad actors on it taught to play their parts, without a spectator in
+view? Do you think that there is anything better for you and me to do,
+now and then, than to sit down quietly in a humble seat, and watch a few
+scenes in the drama? Has it not something to say to us, and do we not
+understand it best when we have a peaceful heart and free from dolor?
+That is what IN-DOLENCE means, and there are no better teachers of it
+then the light-hearted birds and untoiling flowers, commended by the
+wisest of all masters to our consideration; nor can we find a more
+pleasant pedagogue to lead us to their school than a small, merry brook.
+
+And this was what our chosen stream did for us. It was always luring us
+away from an artificial life into restful companionship with nature.
+
+Suppose, for example, we found ourselves growing a bit dissatisfied
+with the domestic arrangements of our little cottage, and coveting the
+splendours of a grander establishment. An afternoon on the brook was
+a good cure for that folly. Or suppose a day came when there was an
+imminent prospect of many formal calls. We had an important engagement
+up the brook; and while we kept it we could think with satisfaction of
+the joy of our callers when they discovered that they could discharge
+their whole duty with a piece of pasteboard. This was an altruistic
+pleasure. Or suppose that a few friends were coming to supper, and there
+were no flowers for the supper-table. We could easily have bought them
+in the village. But it was far more to our liking to take the children
+up the brook, and come back with great bunches of wild white honeysuckle
+and blue flag, or posies of arrowheads and cardinal-flowers. Or suppose
+that I was very unwisely and reluctantly labouring at some serious
+piece of literary work, promised for the next number of THE SCRIBBLER'S
+REVIEW; and suppose that in the midst of this labour the sad news came
+to me that the fisherman had forgotten to leave any fish at our cottage
+that morning. Should my innocent babes and my devoted wife be left to
+perish of starvation while I continued my poetical comparison of the two
+Williams, Shakspeare and Watson? Inhuman selfishness! Of course it was
+my plain duty to sacrifice my inclinations, and get my fly-rod, and row
+away across the bay, with a deceptive appearance of cheerfulness, to
+catch a basket of trout in--
+
+
+
+
+III. THE SECRETS OF INTIMACY
+
+
+THERE! I came within eight letters of telling the name of the brook,
+a thing that I am firmly resolved not to do. If it were an ordinary
+fishless little river, or even a stream with nothing better than
+grass-pike and sunfish in it, you should have the name and welcome. But
+when a brook contains speckled trout, and when their presence is known
+to a very few persons who guard the secret as the dragon guarded the
+golden apples of the Hesperides, and when the size of the trout is large
+beyond the dreams of hope,--well, when did you know a true angler who
+would willingly give away the name of such a brook as that? You may find
+an encourager of indolence in almost any stream of the South Side, and
+I wish you joy of your brook. But if you want to catch trout in mine
+you must discover it for yourself, or perhaps go with me some day, and
+solemnly swear secrecy.
+
+That was the way in which the freedom of the stream was conferred
+upon me. There was a small boy in the village, the son of rich but
+respectable parents, and an inveterate all-round sportsman, aged
+fourteen years, with whom I had formed a close intimacy. I was telling
+him about the pleasure of exploring the idle brook, and expressing the
+opinion that in bygone days, (in that mythical "forty years ago" when
+all fishing was good), there must have been trout in it. A certain
+look came over the boy's face. He gazed at me solemnly, as if he were
+searching the inmost depths of my character before he spoke.
+
+"Say, do you want to know something?"
+
+I assured him that an increase of knowledge was the chief aim of my
+life.
+
+"Do you promise you won't tell?"
+
+I expressed my readiness to be bound to silence by the most awful pledge
+that the law would sanction.
+
+"Wish you may die?"
+
+I not only wished that I might die, but was perfectly certain that I
+would die.
+
+"Well, what's the matter with catching trout in that brook now? Do you
+want to go with me next Saturday? I saw four or five bully ones last
+week, and got three."
+
+On the appointed day we made the voyage, landed at the upper bridge,
+walked around by the woodpath to the railroad embankment, and began
+to worm our way down through the tangled wilderness. Fly-fishing, of
+course, was out of the question. The only possible method of angling
+was to let the line, baited with a juicy "garden hackle," drift down the
+current as far as possible before you, under the alder-branches and the
+cat-briers, into the holes and corners of the stream. Then, if there
+came a gentle tug on the rod, you must strike, to one side or the other,
+as the branches might allow, and trust wholly to luck for a chance to
+play the fish. Many a trout we lost that day,--the largest ones, of
+course,--and many a hook was embedded in a sunken log, or hopelessly
+entwined among the boughs overhead. But when we came out at the bridge,
+very wet and disheveled, we had seven pretty fish, the heaviest about
+half a pound. The Fairy Dell yielded a brace of smaller ones, and
+altogether we were reasonably happy as we took up the oars and pushed
+out upon the open stream.
+
+But if there were fish above, why should there not be fish below? It was
+about sunset, the angler's golden hour. We were already committed to
+the crime of being late for supper. It would add little to our guilt and
+much to our pleasure to drift slowly down the middle of the brook and
+cast the artful fly in the deeper corners on either shore. So I took off
+the vulgar bait-hook and put on a delicate leader with a Queen of the
+Water for a tail-fly and a Yellow Sally for a dropper,--innocent little
+confections of feathers and tinsel, dressed on the tiniest hooks, and
+calculated to tempt the appetite or the curiosity of the most capricious
+trout.
+
+For a long time the whipping of the water produced no result, and it
+seemed as if the dainty style of angling were destined to prove less
+profitable than plain fishing with a worm. But presently we came to
+an elbow of the brook, just above the estuary, where there was quite a
+stretch of clear water along the lower side, with two half-sunken logs
+sticking out from the bank, against which the current had drifted a
+broad raft of weeds. I made a long cast, and sent the tail-fly close to
+the edge of the weeds. There was a swelling ripple on the surface of the
+water, and a noble fish darted from under the logs, dashed at the fly,
+missed it, and whirled back to his shelter.
+
+"Gee!" said the boy, "that was a whacker! He made a wake like a
+steamboat."
+
+It was a moment for serious thought. What was best to be done with that
+fish? Leave him to settle down for the night and come back after him
+another day? Or try another cast for him at once? A fish on Saturday
+evening is worth two on Monday morning. I changed the Queen of the
+Water for a Royal Coachman tied on a number fourteen hook,--white wings,
+peacock body with a belt of crimson silk,--and sent it out again, a foot
+farther up the stream and a shade closer to the weeds. As it settled on
+the water, there was a flash of gold from the shadow beneath the logs,
+and a quick turn of the wrist made the tiny hook fast in the fish. He
+fought wildly to get back to the shelter of his logs, but the four ounce
+rod had spring enough in it to hold him firmly away from that dangerous
+retreat. Then he splurged up and down the open water, and made fierce
+dashes among the grassy shallows, and seemed about to escape a dozen
+times. But at last his force was played out; he came slowly towards the
+boat, turning on his side, and I netted him in my hat.
+
+"Bully for us;" said the boy, "we got him! What a dandy!"
+
+It was indeed one of the handsomest fish that I have ever taken on the
+South Side,--just short of two pounds and a quarter,--small head, broad
+tail, and well-rounded sides coloured with orange and blue and gold and
+red. A pair of the same kind, one weighing two pounds and the other a
+pound and three quarters, were taken by careful fishing down the lower
+end of the pool, and then we rowed home through the dusk, pleasantly
+convinced that there is no virtue more certainly rewarded than the
+patience of anglers, and entirely willing to put up with a cold supper
+and a mild reproof for the sake of sport.
+
+Of course we could not resist the temptation to show those fish to
+the neighbours. But, equally of course, we evaded the request to give
+precise information as to the precise place where they were caught.
+Indeed, I fear that there must have been something confused in our
+description of where we had been on that afternoon. Our carefully
+selected language may have been open to misunderstanding. At all events,
+the next day, which was the Sabbath, there was a row of eager but
+unprincipled anglers sitting on a bridge OVER ANOTHER STREAM, and
+fishing for trout with worms and large expectations, but without visible
+results.
+
+The boy and I agreed that if this did not teach a good moral lesson it
+was not our fault.
+
+I obtained the boy's consent to admit the partner of my life's joys and
+two of our children to the secret of the brook, and thereafter, when
+we visited it, we took the fly-rod with us. If by chance another boat
+passed us in the estuary, we were never fishing, but only gathering
+flowers, or going for a picnic, or taking photographs. But when the
+uninitiated ones had passed by, we would get out the rod again, and try
+a few more casts.
+
+One day in particular I remember, when Graygown and little Teddy were
+my companions. We really had no hopes of angling, for the hour was
+mid-noon, and the day was warm and still. But suddenly the trout, by
+one of those unaccountable freaks which make their disposition so
+interesting and attractive, began to rise all about us in a bend of the
+stream.
+
+"Look!" said Teddy; "wherever you see one of those big smiles on the
+water, I believe there's a fish!"
+
+Fortunately the rod was at hand. Graygown and Teddy managed the boat and
+the landing-net with consummate skill. We landed no less than a dozen
+beautiful fish at that most unlikely hour and then solemnly shook hands
+all around.
+
+There is a peculiar pleasure in doing a thing like this, catching trout
+in a place where nobody thinks of looking for them, and at an hour when
+everybody believes they cannot be caught. It is more fun to take one
+good fish out of an old, fished-out stream, near at hand to the village,
+than to fill a basket from some far-famed and well-stocked water. It
+is the unexpected touch that tickles our sense of pleasure. While life
+lasts, we are always hoping for it and expecting it. There is no country
+so civilized, no existence so humdrum, that there is not room enough in
+it somewhere for a lazy, idle brook, an encourager of indolence, with
+hope of happy surprises.
+
+
+
+
+THE OPEN FIRE
+
+
+     "It is a vulgar notion that a fire is only for heat.  A
+     chief value of it is, however, to look at.  And it is never
+     twice the same."
+
+     --CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER: Backlog Studies.
+
+
+
+
+I. LIGHTING UP
+
+
+Man is the animal that has made friends with the fire.
+
+All the other creatures, in their natural state, are afraid of it. They
+look upon it with wonder and dismay. It fascinates them, sometimes,
+with its glittering eyes in the night. The squirrels and the hares come
+pattering softly towards it through the underbrush around the new camp.
+The fascinated deer stares into the blaze of the jack-light while the
+hunter's canoe creeps through the lily-pads. But the charm that masters
+them is one of dread, not of love. It is the witchcraft of the serpent's
+lambent look. When they know what it means, when the heat of the
+fire touches them, or even when its smell comes clearly to their most
+delicate sense, they recognize it as their enemy, the Wild Huntsman
+whose red hounds can follow, follow for days without wearying, growing
+stronger and more furious with every turn of the chase. Let but a trail
+of smoke drift down the wind across the forest, and all the game for
+miles and miles will catch the signal for fear and flight.
+
+Many of the animals have learned how to make houses for themselves.
+The CABANE of the beaver is a wonder of neatness and comfort, much
+preferable to the wigwam of his Indian hunter. The muskrat knows how
+thick and high to build the dome of his waterside cottage, in order to
+protect himself against the frost of the coming winter and the floods of
+the following spring. The woodchuck's house has two or three doors; and
+the squirrel's dwelling is provided with a good bed and a convenient
+storehouse for nuts and acorns. The sportive otters have a toboggan
+slide in front of their residence; and the moose in winter make a
+"yard," where they can take exercise comfortably and find shelter for
+sleep. But there is one thing lacking in all these various dwellings,--a
+fireplace.
+
+Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire and to live with it.
+The reason? Because he alone has learned how to put it out.
+
+It is true that two of his humbler friends have been converted to
+fire-worship. The dog and the cat, being half-humanized, have begun to
+love the fire. I suppose that a cat seldom comes so near to feeling a
+true sense of affection as when she has finished her saucer of bread and
+milk, and stretched herself luxuriously underneath the kitchen stove,
+while her faithful mistress washes up the dishes. As for a dog, I am
+sure that his admiring love for his master is never greater than when
+they come in together from the hunt, wet and tired, and the man gathers
+a pile of wood in front of the tent, touches it with a tiny magic wand,
+and suddenly the clear, consoling flame springs up, saying cheerfully,
+"Here we are, at home in the forest; come into the warmth; rest, and
+eat, and sleep." When the weary, shivering dog sees this miracle, he
+knows that his master is a great man and a lord of things.
+
+After all, that is the only real open fire. Wood is the fuel for it.
+Out-of-doors is the place for it. A furnace is an underground prison
+for a toiling slave. A stove is a cage for a tame bird. Even a broad
+hearthstone and a pair of glittering andirons--the best ornament of a
+room--must be accepted as an imitation of the real thing. The veritable
+open fire is built in the open, with the whole earth for a fireplace and
+the sky for a chimney.
+
+To start a fire in the open is by no means as easy as it looks. It is
+one of those simple tricks that every one thinks he can perform until he
+tries it.
+
+To do it without trying,--accidentally and unwillingly,--that, of
+course, is a thing for which any fool is fit. You knock out the ashes
+from your pipe on a fallen log; you toss the end of a match into a patch
+of grass, green on top, but dry as punk underneath; you scatter the
+dead brands of an old fire among the moss,--a conflagration is under way
+before you know it.
+
+A fire in the woods is one thing; a comfort and a joy. Fire in the woods
+is another thing; a terror, an uncontrollable fury, a burning shame.
+
+But the lighting up of a proper fire, kindly, approachable, serviceable,
+docile, is a work of intelligence. If, perhaps, you have to do it in the
+rain, with a single match, it requires no little art and skill.
+
+There is plenty of wood everywhere, but not a bit to burn. The fallen
+trees are waterlogged. The dead leaves are as damp as grief. The charred
+sticks that you find in an old fireplace are absolutely incombustible.
+Do not trust the handful of withered twigs and branches that you gather
+from the spruce-trees. They seem dry, but they are little better for
+your purpose than so much asbestos. You make a pile of them in some
+apparently suitable hollow, and lay a few larger sticks on top. Then
+you hastily scratch your solitary match on the seat of your trousers and
+thrust it into the pile of twigs. What happens? The wind whirls around
+in your stupid little hollow, and the blue flame of the sulphur spirts
+and sputters for an instant, and then goes out. Or perhaps there is
+a moment of stillness; the match flares up bravely; the nearest twigs
+catch fire, crackling and sparkling; you hurriedly lay on more sticks;
+but the fire deliberately dodges them, creeps to the corner of the pile
+where the twigs are fewest and dampest, snaps feebly a few times, and
+expires in smoke. Now where are you? How far is it to the nearest match?
+
+If you are wise, you will always make your fire before you light it.
+Time is never saved by doing a thing badly.
+
+
+
+
+II. THE CAMP-FIRE
+
+
+In the making of fires there is as much difference as in the building of
+houses. Everything depends upon the purpose that you have in view. There
+is the camp-fire, and the cooking-fire, and the smudge-fire, and the
+little friendship-fire,--not to speak of other minor varieties. Each of
+these has its own proper style of architecture, and to mix them is false
+art and poor economy.
+
+The object of the camp-fire is to give heat, and incidentally light, to
+your tent or shanty. You can hardly build this kind of a fire unless you
+have a good axe and know how to chop. For the first thing that you need
+is a solid backlog, the thicker the better, to hold the heat and reflect
+it into the tent. This log must not be too dry, or it will burn
+out quickly. Neither must it be too damp, else it will smoulder and
+discourage the fire. The best wood for it is the body of a yellow birch,
+and, next to that, a green balsam. It should be five or six feet long,
+and at least two and a half feet in diameter. If you cannot find a
+tree thick enough, cut two or three lengths of a smaller one; lay the
+thickest log on the ground first, about ten or twelve feet in front of
+the tent; drive two strong stakes behind it, slanting a little backward;
+and lay the other logs on top of the first, resting against the stakes.
+
+Now you are ready for the hand-chunks, or andirons. These are shorter
+sticks of wood, eight or ten inches thick, laid at right angles to the
+backlog, four or five feet apart. Across these you are to build up the
+firewood proper.
+
+Use a dry spruce-tree, not one that has fallen, but one that is dead and
+still standing, if you want a lively, snapping fire. Use a hard maple
+or a hickory if you want a fire that will burn steadily and make few
+sparks. But if you like a fire to blaze up at first with a splendid
+flame, and then burn on with an enduring heat far into the night, a
+young white birch with the bark on is the tree to choose. Six or eight
+round sticks of this laid across the hand-chunks, with perhaps a few
+quarterings of a larger tree, will make a glorious fire.
+
+But before you put these on, you must be ready to light up. A few
+splinters of dry spruce or pine or balsam, stood endwise against
+the backlog, or, better still, piled up in a pyramid between the
+hand-chunks; a few strips of birch-bark; and one good match,--these
+are all that you want. But be sure that your match is a good one. It is
+better to see to this before you go into the brush. Your comfort, even
+your life, may depend on it.
+
+"AVEC CES ALLUMETTES-LA," said my guide at LAC ST. JEAN one day, as he
+vainly tried to light his pipe with a box of parlour matches from the
+hotel,--AVEC CES GNOGNOTTES D'ALLUMETTES ON POURRA MOURIR AU BOIS!"
+
+In the woods, the old-fashioned brimstone match of our grandfathers--the
+match with a brown head and a stout stick and a dreadful smell--is the
+best. But if you have only one, do not trust even that to light your
+fire directly. Use it first to touch off a roll of birch-bark which you
+hold in your hand. Then, when the bark is well alight, crinkling and
+curling, push it under the heap of kindlings, give the flame time to
+take a good hold, and lay your wood over it, a stick at a time, until
+the whole pile is blazing. Now your fire is started. Your friendly
+little red-haired gnome is ready to serve you through the night.
+
+He will dry your clothes if you are wet. He will cheer you up if you are
+despondent. He will diffuse an air of sociability through the camp, and
+draw the men together in a half circle for storytelling and jokes and
+singing. He will hold a flambeau for you while you spread your blankets
+on the boughs and dress for bed. He will keep you warm while you
+sleep,--at least till about three o'clock in the morning, when you dream
+that you are out sleighing in your pajamas, and wake up with a shiver.
+
+"HOLA, FERDINAND, FRANCOIS!" you call out from your bed, pulling the
+blankets over your ears; "RAMANCHEZ LE FEU, S'IL VOUS PLAIT. C'EST UN
+FREITE DE CHIEN."
+
+
+
+
+III. THE COOKING-FIRE
+
+
+Of course such a fire as I have been describing can be used for cooking,
+when it has burned down a little, and there is a bed of hot embers in
+front of the backlog. But a correct kitchen fire should be constructed
+after another fashion. What you want now is not blaze, but heat, and
+that not diffused, but concentrated. You must be able to get close to
+your fire without burning your boots or scorching your face.
+
+If you have time and the material, make a fireplace of big stones. But
+not of granite, for that will split with the heat, and perhaps fly in
+your face.
+
+If you are in a hurry and there are no suitable stones at hand, lay two
+good logs nearly parallel with each other, a foot or so apart, and build
+your fire between them. For a cooking-fire, use split wood in short
+sticks. Let the first supply burn to glowing coals before you begin.
+A frying-pan that is lukewarm one minute and red-hot the next is the
+abomination of desolation. If you want black toast, have it made before
+a fresh, sputtering, blazing heap of wood.
+
+In fires, as in men, an excess of energy is a lack of usefulness. The
+best work is done without many sparks. Just enough is the right kind of
+a fire and a feast.
+
+To know how to cook is not a very elegant accomplishment. Yet there are
+times and seasons when it seems to come in better than familiarity with
+the dead languages, or much skill upon the lute.
+
+You cannot always rely on your guides for a tasteful preparation of
+food. Many of them are ignorant of the difference between frying and
+broiling, and their notion of boiling a potato or a fish is to reduce it
+to a pulp. Now and then you find a man who has a natural inclination to
+the culinary art, and who does very well within familiar limits.
+
+Old Edouard, the Montaignais Indian who cooked for my friends H. E. G.
+and C. S. D. last summer on the STE. MARGUERITE EN BAS, was such a man.
+But Edouard could not read, and the only way he could tell the nature
+of the canned provisions was by the pictures on the cans. If the picture
+was strange to him, there was no guessing what he would do with the
+contents of the can. He was capable of roasting strawberries, and
+serving green peas cold for dessert. One day a can of mullagatawny soup
+and a can of apricots were handed out to him simultaneously and without
+explanations. Edouard solved the problem by opening both cans and
+cooking them together. We had a new soup that day, MULLAGATAWNY AUX
+APRICOTS. It was not as bad as it sounds. It tasted somewhat like
+chutney.
+
+The real reason why food that is cooked over an open fire tastes so good
+to us is because we are really hungry when we get it. The man who puts
+up provisions for camp has a great advantage over the dealers who must
+satisfy the pampered appetite of people in houses. I never can get any
+bacon in New York like that which I buy at a little shop in Quebec to
+take into the woods. If I ever set up in the grocery business, I shall
+try to get a good trade among anglers. It will be easy to please my
+customers.
+
+The reputation that trout enjoy as a food-fish is partly due to the fact
+that they are usually cooked over an open fire. In the city they never
+taste as good. It is not merely a difference in freshness. It is a
+change in the sauce. If the truth must be told, even by an angler, there
+are at least five salt-water fish which are better than trout,--to eat.
+There is none better to catch.
+
+
+
+
+IV. THE SMUDGE-FIRE
+
+
+But enough of the cooking-fire. Let us turn now to the subject of
+the smudge, known in Lower Canada as LA BOUCANE. The smudge owes its
+existence to the pungent mosquito, the sanguinary black-fly, and the
+peppery midge,--LE MARINGOUIN, LA MOUSTIQUE, ET LE BRULOT. To what it
+owes its English name I do not know; but its French name means simply a
+thick, nauseating, intolerable smoke.
+
+The smudge is called into being for the express purpose of creating
+a smoke of this kind, which is as disagreeable to the mosquito, the
+black-fly, and the midge as it is to the man whom they are devouring.
+But the man survives the smoke, while the insects succumb to it, being
+destroyed or driven away. Therefore the smudge, dark and bitter in
+itself, frequently becomes, like adversity, sweet in its uses. It must
+be regarded as a form of fire with which man has made friends under the
+pressure of a cruel necessity.
+
+It would seem as if it ought to be the simplest affair in the world to
+light up a smudge. And so it is--if you are not trying.
+
+An attempt to produce almost any other kind of a fire will bring forth
+smoke abundantly. But when you deliberately undertake to create a
+smudge, flames break from the wettest timber, and green moss blazes with
+a furious heat. You hastily gather handfuls of seemingly incombustible
+material and throw it on the fire, but the conflagration increases.
+Grass and green leaves hesitate for an instant and then flash up like
+tinder. The more you put on, the more your smudge rebels against its
+proper task of smudging. It makes a pleasant warmth, to encourage the
+black-flies; and bright light to attract and cheer the mosquitoes. Your
+effort is a brilliant failure.
+
+The proper way to make a smudge is this. Begin with a very little, lowly
+fire. Let it be bright, but not ambitious. Don't try to make a smoke
+yet.
+
+Then gather a good supply of stuff which seems likely to suppress fire
+without smothering it. Moss of a certain kind will do, but not the soft,
+feathery moss that grows so deep among the spruce-trees. Half-decayed
+wood is good; spongy, moist, unpleasant stuff, a vegetable wet blanket.
+The bark of dead evergreen trees, hemlock, spruce, or balsam, is better
+still. Gather a plentiful store of it. But don't try to make a smoke
+yet.
+
+Let your fire burn a while longer; cheer it up a little. Get some clear,
+resolute, unquenchable coals aglow in the heart of it. Don't try to make
+a smoke yet.
+
+Now pile on your smouldering fuel. Fan it with your hat. Kneel down and
+blow it, and in ten minutes you will have a smoke that will make you
+wish you had never been born.
+
+That is the proper way to make a smudge. But the easiest way is to ask
+your guide to make it for you.
+
+If he makes it in an old iron pot, so much the better, for then you can
+move it around to the windward when the breeze veers, and carry it into
+your tent without risk of setting everything on fire, and even take it
+with you in the canoe while you are fishing.
+
+Some of the pleasantest pictures in the angler's gallery of remembrance
+are framed in the smoke that rises from a smudge.
+
+With my eyes shut, I can call up a vision of eight birch-bark canoes
+floating side by side on Moosehead Lake, on a fair June morning, fifteen
+years ago. They are anchored off Green Island, riding easily on the
+long, gentle waves. In the stern of each canoe there is a guide with
+a long-handled net; in the bow, an angler with a light fly-rod; in the
+middle, a smudge-kettle, smoking steadily. In the air to the windward
+of the little fleet hovers a swarm of flies drifting down on the
+shore breeze, with bloody purpose in their breasts, but baffled by the
+protecting smoke. In the water to the leeward plays a school of speckled
+trout, feeding on the minnows that hang around the sunken ledges of
+rock. As a larger wave than usual passes over the ledges, it lifts the
+fish up, and you can see the big fellows, three, and four, and even five
+pounds apiece, poising themselves in the clear brown water. A long cast
+will send the fly over one of them. Let it sink a foot. Draw it up with
+a fluttering motion. Now the fish sees it, and turns to catch it. There
+is a yellow gleam in the depth, a sudden swirl on the surface; you
+strike sharply, and the trout is matching his strength against the
+spring of your four ounces of split bamboo.
+
+You can guess at his size, as he breaks water, by the breadth of his
+tail: a pound of weight to an inch of tail,--that is the traditional
+measure, and it usually comes pretty close to the mark, at least in the
+case of large fish. But it is never safe to record the weight until the
+trout is in the canoe. As the Canadian hunters say, "Sell not the skin
+of the bear while he carries it."
+
+Now the breeze that blows over Green Island drops away, and the smoke
+of the eight smudge-kettles falls like a thick curtain. The canoes, the
+dark shores of Norcross Point, the twin peaks of Spencer Mountain, the
+dim blue summit of Katahdin, the dazzling sapphire sky, the flocks of
+fleece-white clouds shepherded on high by the western wind, all have
+vanished. With closed eyes I see another vision, still framed in
+smoke,--a vision of yesterday.
+
+It is a wild river flowing into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the COTE
+NORD, far down towards Labrador. There is a long, narrow, swift pool
+between two parallel ridges of rock. Over the ridge on the right pours
+a cataract of pale yellow foam. At the bottom of the pool, the water
+slides down into a furious rapid, and dashes straight through an
+impassable gorge half a mile to the sea. The pool is full of salmon,
+leaping merrily in their delight at coming into their native stream. The
+air is full of black-flies, rejoicing in the warmth of the July sun. On
+a slippery point of rock, below the fall, are two anglers, tempting the
+fish and enduring the flies. Behind them is an old HABITANT raising a
+mighty column of smoke.
+
+Through the cloudy pillar which keeps back the Egyptian host, you see
+the waving of a long rod. A silver-gray fly with a barbed tail darts out
+across the pool, swings around with the current, well under water, and
+slowly works past the big rock in the centre, just at the head of the
+rapid. Almost past it, but not quite: for suddenly the fly disappears;
+the line begins to run out; the reel sings sharp and shrill; a salmon is
+hooked.
+
+But how well is he hooked? That is the question. This is no easy pool to
+play a fish in. There is no chance to jump into a canoe and drop below
+him, and get the current to help you in drowning him. You cannot follow
+him along the shore. You cannot even lead him into quiet water, where
+the gaffer can creep near to him unseen and drag him in with a quick
+stroke. You must fight your fish to a finish, and all the advantages are
+on his side. The current is terribly strong. If he makes up his mind to
+go downstream to the sea, the only thing you can do is to hold him by
+main force; and then it is ten to one that the hook tears out or the
+leader breaks.
+
+It is not in human nature for one man to watch another handling a fish
+in such a place without giving advice. "Keep the tip of your rod up.
+Don't let your reel overrun. Stir him up a little, he 's sulking. Don't
+let him 'jig,' or you'll lose him. You 're playing him too hard. There,
+he 's going to jump again. Drop your tip. Stop him, quick! he 's going
+down the rapid!"
+
+Of course the man who is playing the salmon does not like this. If he is
+quick-tempered, sooner or later he tells his counsellor to shut up. But
+if he is a gentle, early-Christian kind of a man, wise as a serpent and
+harmless as a dove, he follows the advice that is given to him, promptly
+and exactly. Then, when it is all ended, and he has seen the big fish,
+with the line over his shoulder, poised for an instant on the crest of
+the first billow of the rapid, and has felt the leader stretch and give
+and SNAP!--then he can have the satisfaction, while he reels in his
+slack line, of saying to his friend, "Well, old man, I did everything
+just as you told me. But I think if I had pushed that fish a little
+harder at the beginning, AS I WANTED TO, I might have saved him."
+
+But really, of course, the chances were all against it. In such a pool,
+most of the larger fish get away. Their weight gives them a tremendous
+pull. The fish that are stopped from going into the rapid, and dragged
+back from the curling wave, are usually the smaller ones. Here they
+are,--twelve pounds, eight pounds, six pounds, five pounds and a half,
+FOUR POUNDS! Is not this the smallest salmon that you ever saw? Not
+a grilse, you understand, but a real salmon, of brightest silver,
+hall-marked with St. Andrew's cross.
+
+Now let us sit down for a moment and watch the fish trying to leap up
+the falls. There is a clear jump of about ten feet, and above that an
+apparently impossible climb of ten feet more up a ladder of twisting
+foam. A salmon darts from the boiling water at the bottom of the fall
+like an arrow from a bow. He rises in a beautiful curve, fins laid close
+to his body and tail quivering; but he has miscalculated his distance.
+He is on the downward curve when the water strikes him and tumbles him
+back. A bold little fish, not more than eighteen inches long, makes a
+jump at the side of the fall, where the water is thin, and is rolled
+over and over in the spray. A larger salmon rises close beside us with
+a tremendous rush, bumps his nose against a jutting rock, and flops back
+into the pool. Now comes a fish who has made his calculations exactly.
+He leaves the pool about eight feet from the foot of the fall, rises
+swiftly, spreads his fins, and curves his tail as if he were flying,
+strikes the water where it is thickest just below the brink, holds on
+desperately, and drives himself, with one last wriggle, through the
+bending stream, over the edge, and up the first step of the foaming
+stairway. He has obeyed the strongest instinct of his nature, and gone
+up to make love in the highest fresh water that he can reach.
+
+The smoke of the smudge-fire is sharp and tearful, but a man can learn
+to endure a good deal of it when he can look through its rings at such
+scenes as these.
+
+
+
+
+V. THE LITTLE FRIENDSHIP-FIRE
+
+
+There are times and seasons when the angler has no need of any of the
+three fires of which we have been talking. He sleeps in a house. His
+breakfast and dinner are cooked for him in a kitchen. He is in no great
+danger from black-flies or mosquitoes. All he needs now, as he sets out
+to spend a day on the Neversink, or the Willowemoc, or the Shepaug,
+or the Swiftwater, is a good lunch in his pocket, and a little
+friendship-fire to burn pleasantly beside him while he eats his frugal
+fare and prolongs his noonday rest.
+
+This form of fire does less work than any other in the world. Yet it is
+far from being useless; and I, for one, should be sorry to live without
+it. Its only use is to make a visible centre of interest where there are
+two or three anglers eating their lunch together, or to supply a kind of
+companionship to a lone fisherman. It is kindled and burns for no other
+purpose than to give you the sense of being at home and at ease. Why the
+fire should do this, I cannot tell, but it does.
+
+You may build your friendship-fire in almost any way that pleases you;
+but this is the way in which you shall build it best. You have no axe,
+of course, so you must look about for the driest sticks that you can
+find. Do not seek them close beside the stream, for there they are
+likely to be water-soaked; but go back into the woods a bit and gather
+a good armful of fuel. Then break it, if you can, into lengths of about
+two feet, and construct your fire in the following fashion.
+
+Lay two sticks parallel, and put between them a pile of dried grass,
+dead leaves, small twigs, and the paper in which your lunch was wrapped.
+Then lay two other sticks crosswise on top of your first pair. Strike
+your match and touch your kindlings. As the fire catches, lay on other
+pairs of sticks, each pair crosswise to the pair that is below it, until
+you have a pyramid of flame. This is "a Micmac fire" such as the Indians
+make in the woods.
+
+Now you can pull off your wading-boots and warm your feet at the blaze.
+You can toast your bread if you like. You can even make shift to broil
+one of your trout, fastened on the end of a birch twig if you have a
+fancy that way. When your hunger is satisfied, you shake out the crumbs
+for the birds and the squirrels, pick up a stick with a coal at the end
+to light your pipe, put some more wood on your fire, and settle down for
+an hour's reading if you have a book in your pocket, or for a good talk
+if you have a comrade with you.
+
+The stream of time flows swift and smooth, by such a fire as this. The
+moments slip past unheeded; the sun sinks down his western arch; the
+shadows begin to fall across the brook; it is time to move on for the
+afternoon fishing. The fire has almost burned out. But do not trust it
+too much. Throw some sand over it, or bring a hatful of water from the
+brook to pour on it, until you are sure that the last glowing ember is
+extinguished, and nothing but the black coals and the charred ends of
+the sticks are left.
+
+Even the little friendship-fire must keep the law of the bush. All
+lights out when their purpose is fulfilled!
+
+
+
+
+VI. ALTARS OF REMEMBRANCE
+
+
+It is a question that we have often debated, in the informal meetings of
+our Petrine Club: Which is pleasanter,--to fish an old stream, or a new
+one?
+
+The younger members are all for the "fresh woods and pastures new."
+They speak of the delight of turning off from the high-road into some
+faintly-marked trail; following it blindly through the forest, not
+knowing how far you have to go; hearing the voice of waters sounding
+through the woodland; leaving the path impatiently and striking straight
+across the underbrush; scrambling down a steep bank, pushing through
+a thicket of alders, and coming out suddenly, face to face with a
+beautiful, strange brook. It reminds you, of course, of some old friend.
+It is a little like the Beaverkill, or the Ausable, or the Gale
+River. And yet it is different. Every stream has its own character and
+disposition. Your new acquaintance invites you to a day of discoveries.
+If the water is high, you will follow it down, and have easy fishing.
+If the water is low, you will go upstream, and fish "fine and far-off."
+Every turn in the avenue which the little river has made for you opens
+up a new view,--a rocky gorge where the deep pools are divided by
+white-footed falls; a lofty forest where the shadows are deep and the
+trees arch overhead; a flat, sunny stretch where the stream is spread
+out, and pebbly islands divide the channels, and the big fish are
+lurking at the sides in the sheltered corners under the bushes. From
+scene to scene you follow on, delighted and expectant, until the night
+suddenly drops its veil, and then you will be lucky if you can find your
+way home in the dark!
+
+Yes, it is all very good, this exploration of new streams. But, for my
+part, I like still better to go back to a familiar little river, and
+fish or dream along the banks where I have dreamed and fished before. I
+know every bend and curve: the sharp turn where the water runs under the
+roots of the old hemlock-tree; the snaky glen, where the alders stretch
+their arms far out across the stream; the meadow reach, where the trout
+are fat and silvery, and will only rise about sunrise or sundown, unless
+the day is cloudy; the Naiad's Elbow, where the brook rounds itself,
+smooth and dimpled, to embrace a cluster of pink laurel-bushes. All
+these I know; yes, and almost every current and eddy and backwater I
+know long before I come to it. I remember where I caught the big trout
+the first year I came to the stream; and where I lost a bigger one. I
+remember the pool where there were plenty of good fish last year, and
+wonder whether they are there now.
+
+Better things than these I remember: the companions with whom I have
+followed the stream in days long past; the rendezvous with a comrade at
+the place where the rustic bridge crosses the brook; the hours of sweet
+converse beside the friendship-fire; the meeting at twilight with my
+lady Graygown and the children, who have come down by the wood-road to
+walk home with me.
+
+Surely it is pleasant to follow an old stream. Flowers grow along its
+banks which are not to be found anywhere else in the wide world. "There
+is rosemary, that 's for remembrance; and there is pansies, that 's for
+thoughts!"
+
+One May evening, a couple of years since, I was angling in the
+Swiftwater, and came upon Joseph Jefferson, stretched out on a large
+rock in midstream, and casting the fly down a long pool. He had passed
+the threescore years and ten, but he was as eager and as happy as a boy
+in his fishing.
+
+"You here!" I cried. "What good fortune brought you into these waters?"
+
+"Ah," he answered, "I fished this brook forty-five years ago. It was in
+the Paradise Valley that I first thought of Rip Van Winkle. I wanted to
+come back again for the sake of old times."
+
+But what has all this to do with an open fire? I will tell you. It is
+at the places along the stream, where the little flames of love and
+friendship have been kindled in bygone days, that the past returns most
+vividly. These are the altars of remembrance.
+
+It is strange how long a small fire will leave its mark. The charred
+sticks, the black coals, do not decay easily. If they lie well up the
+hank, out of reach of the spring floods, they will stay there for years.
+If you have chanced to build a rough fireplace of stones from the brook,
+it seems almost as if it would last forever.
+
+There is a mossy knoll beneath a great butternut-tree on the Swiftwater
+where such a fireplace was built four years ago; and whenever I come to
+that place now I lay the rod aside, and sit down for a little while by
+the fast-flowing water, and remember.
+
+This is what I see: A man wading up the stream, with a creel over his
+shoulder, and perhaps a dozen trout in it; two little lads in gray
+corduroys running down the path through the woods to meet him, one
+carrying a frying-pan and a kettle, the other with a basket of lunch on
+his arm. Then I see the bright flames leaping up in the fireplace, and
+hear the trout sizzling in the pan, and smell the appetizing odour. Now
+I see the lads coming back across the foot-bridge that spans the stream,
+with a bottle of milk from the nearest farmhouse. They are laughing
+and teetering as they balance along the single plank. Now the table is
+spread on the moss. How good the lunch tastes! Never were there such
+pink-fleshed trout, such crisp and savoury slices of broiled bacon.
+Douglas, (the beloved doll that the younger lad shamefacedly brings
+out from the pocket of his jacket,) must certainly have some of it. And
+after the lunch is finished, and the bird's portion has been scattered
+on the moss, we creep carefully on our hands and knees to the edge
+of the brook, and look over the bank at the big trout that is poising
+himself in the amber water. We have tried a dozen times to catch him,
+but never succeeded. The next time, perhaps--
+
+Well, the fireplace is still standing. The butternut-tree spreads its
+broad branches above the stream. The violets and the bishop's-caps and
+the wild anemones are sprinkled over the banks. The yellow-throat
+and the water-thrush and the vireos still sing the same tunes in the
+thicket. And the elder of the two lads often comes back with me to that
+pleasant place and shares my fisherman's luck beside the Swiftwater.
+
+But the younger lad?
+
+Ah, my little Barney, you have gone to follow a new stream,--clear as
+crystal,--flowing through fields of wonderful flowers that never fade.
+It is a strange river to Teddy and me; strange and very far away. Some
+day we shall see it with you; and you will teach us the names of those
+blossoms that do not wither. But till then, little Barney, the other
+lad and I will follow the old stream that flows by the woodland
+fireplace,--your altar.
+
+Rue grows here. Yes, there is plenty of rue. But there is also
+rosemary, that 's for remembrance! And close beside it I see a little
+heart's-ease.
+
+
+
+
+A SLUMBER SONG FOR THE FISHERMAN'S CHILD
+
+
+          Furl your sail, my little boatie;
+              Here 's the haven, still and deep,
+          Where the dreaming tides, in-streaming,
+                   Up the channel creep.
+          See, the sunset breeze is dying;
+          Hark, the plover, landward flying,
+          Softly down the twilight crying;
+              Come to anchor, little boatie,
+                  In the port of Sleep.
+
+          Far away, my little boatie,
+              Roaring waves are white with foam;
+          Ships are striving, onward driving,
+                  Day and night they roam.
+          Father 's at the deep-sea trawling,
+          In the darkness, rowing, hauling,
+          While the hungry winds are calling,--
+             God protect him, little boatie,
+                  Bring him safely home!
+
+          Not for you, my little boatie,
+              Is the wide and weary sea;
+          You 're too slender, and too tender,
+                  You must rest with me.
+          All day long you have been straying
+          Up and down the shore and playing;
+          Come to port, make no delaying!
+              Day is over, little boatie,
+                  Night falls suddenly.
+
+          Furl your sail, my little boatie;
+              Fold your wings, my tired dove.
+          Dews are sprinkling, stars are twinkling
+                  Drowsily above.
+          Cease from sailing, cease from rowing;
+          Rock upon the dream-tide, knowing
+          Safely o'er your rest are glowing,
+              All the night, my little boatie,
+                  Harbour-lights of love.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fisherman's Luck, by Henry van Dyke
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1139 ***
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Fisherman's Luck and Some Other Uncertain Things, by Henry Van Dyke
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+    
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+  </head>
+  <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1139 ***</div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      FISHERMAN'S LUCK<br /> AND<br /> SOME OTHER UNCERTAIN THINGS
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      by Henry van Dyke
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Now I conclude that not only in Physicke, but likewise in
+     sundry more certaine arts, fortune hath great share in
+     them."
+
+     M. DE MONTAIGNE: Divers Events.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> DEDICATION TO MY LADY GRAYGOWN
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here is the basket; I bring it home to you. There are no great fish in it.
+      But perhaps there may be one or two little ones which will be to your
+      taste. And there are a few shining pebbles from the bed of the brook, and
+      ferns from the cool, green woods, and wild flowers from the places that
+      you remember. I would fain console you, if I could, for the hardship of
+      having married an angler: a man who relapses into his mania with the
+      return of every spring, and never sees a little river without wishing to
+      fish in it. But after all, we have had good times together as we have
+      followed the stream of life towards the sea. And we have passed through
+      the dark days without losing heart, because we were comrades. So let this
+      book tell you one thing that is certain. In all the life of your fisherman
+      the best piece of luck is just YOU.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> FISHERMAN'S LUCK </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE THRILLING MOMENT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> TALKABILITY </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> I. PRELUDE&mdash;ON AN OLD, FOOLISH MAXIM </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> II. THEME&mdash;ON A SMALL, USEFUL VIRTUE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> III. VARIATIONS&mdash;ON A PLEASANT PHRASE
+        FROM MONTAIGNE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> A WILD STRAWBERRY </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> LOVERS AND LANDSCAPE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> A FATAL SUCCESS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A NORWEGIAN HONEYMOON </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS? </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> A LAZY, IDLE BROOK </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> I. A CASUAL INTRODUCTION </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> II. A BETTER ACQUAINTANCE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> III. THE SECRETS OF INTIMACY </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> THE OPEN FIRE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> I. LIGHTING UP </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> II. THE CAMP-FIRE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> III. THE COOKING-FIRE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> IV. THE SMUDGE-FIRE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> V. THE LITTLE FRIENDSHIP-FIRE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> VI. ALTARS OF REMEMBRANCE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> A SLUMBER SONG FOR THE FISHERMAN'S CHILD </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      FISHERMAN'S LUCK
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      Has it ever fallen in your way to notice the quality of the greetings that
+      belong to certain occupations?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is something about these salutations in kind which is singularly
+      taking and grateful to the ear. They are as much better than an ordinary
+      "good day" or a flat "how are you?" as a folk-song of Scotland or the
+      Tyrol is better than the futile love-ditty of the drawing-room. They have
+      a spicy and rememberable flavour. They speak to the imagination and point
+      the way to treasure-trove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a touch of dignity in them, too, for all they are so free and
+      easy&mdash;the dignity of independence, the native spirit of one who takes
+      for granted that his mode of living has a right to make its own forms of
+      speech. I admire a man who does not hesitate to salute the world in the
+      dialect of his calling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How salty and stimulating, for example, is the sailorman's hail of "Ship
+      ahoy!" It is like a breeze laden with briny odours and a pleasant dash of
+      spray. The miners in some parts of Germany have a good greeting for their
+      dusky trade. They cry to one who is going down the shaft, "Gluck auf!" All
+      the perils of an underground adventure and all the joys of seeing the sun
+      again are compressed into a word. Even the trivial salutation which the
+      telephone has lately created and claimed for its peculiar use&mdash;"Hello,
+      hello"&mdash;seems to me to have a kind of fitness and fascination. It is
+      like a thoroughbred bulldog, ugly enough to be attractive. There is a
+      lively, concentrated, electric air about it. It makes courtesy wait upon
+      dispatch, and reminds us that we live in an age when it is necessary to be
+      wide awake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have often wished that every human employment might evolve its own
+      appropriate greeting. Some of them would be queer, no doubt; but at least
+      they would be an improvement on the wearisome iteration of "Good-evening"
+      and "Good-morning," and the monotonous inquiry, "How do you do?"&mdash;a
+      question so meaningless that it seldom tarries for an answer. Under the
+      new and more natural system of etiquette, when you passed the time of day
+      with a man you would know his business, and the salutations of the
+      market-place would be full of interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for my chosen pursuit of angling (which I follow with diligence when
+      not interrupted by less important concerns), I rejoice with every true
+      fisherman that it has a greeting all its own and of a most honourable
+      antiquity. There is no written record of its origin. But it is quite
+      certain that since the days after the Flood, when Deucalion
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Did first this art invent
+      Of angling, and his people taught the same,"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      two honest and good-natured anglers have never met each other by the way
+      without crying out, "What luck?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, indeed, is an epitome of the gentle art. Here is the spirit of it
+      embodied in a word and paying its respects to you with its native accent.
+      Here you see its secret charms unconsciously disclosed. The attraction of
+      angling for all the ages of man, from the cradle to the grave, lies in its
+      uncertainty. 'Tis an affair of luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No amount of preparation in the matter of rods and lines and hooks and
+      lures and nets and creels can change its essential character. No
+      excellence of skill in casting the delusive fly or adjusting the tempting
+      bait upon the hook can make the result secure. You may reduce the chances,
+      but you cannot eliminate them. There are a thousand points at which
+      fortune may intervene. The state of the weather, the height of the water,
+      the appetite of the fish, the presence or absence of other anglers&mdash;all
+      these indeterminable elements enter into the reckoning of your success.
+      There is no combination of stars in the firmament by which you can
+      forecast the piscatorial future. When you go a-fishing, you just take your
+      chances; you offer yourself as a candidate for anything that may be going;
+      you try your luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are certain days that are favourites among anglers, who regard them
+      as propitious for the sport. I know a man who believes that the fish
+      always rise better on Sunday than on any other day in the week. He
+      complains bitterly of this supposed fact, because his religious scruples
+      will not allow him to take advantage of it. He confesses that he has
+      sometimes thought seriously of joining the Seventh-Day Baptists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the Pennsylvania Dutch, in the Alleghany Mountains, I have found a
+      curious tradition that Ascension Day is the luckiest in the year for
+      fishing. On that morning the district school is apt to be thinly attended,
+      and you must be on the stream very early if you do not wish to find wet
+      footprints on the stones ahead of you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in fact, all these superstitions about fortunate days are idle and
+      presumptuous. If there were such days in the calendar, a kind and firm
+      Providence would never permit the race of man to discover them. It would
+      rob life of one of its principal attractions, and make fishing altogether
+      too easy to be interesting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fisherman's luck is so notorious that it has passed into a proverb. But
+      the fault with that familiar saying is that it is too short and too narrow
+      to cover half the variations of the angler's possible experience. For if
+      his luck should be bad, there is no portion of his anatomy, from the crown
+      of his head to the soles of his feet, that may not be thoroughly wet. But
+      if it should be good, he may receive an unearned blessing of abundance not
+      only in his basket, but also in his head and his heart, his memory and his
+      fancy. He may come home from some obscure, ill-named, lovely stream&mdash;some
+      Dry Brook, or Southwest Branch of Smith's Run&mdash;with a creel full of
+      trout, and a mind full of grateful recollections of flowers that seemed to
+      bloom for his sake, and birds that sang a new, sweet, friendly message to
+      his tired soul. He may climb down to "Tommy's Rock" below the cliffs at
+      Newport (as I have done many a day with my lady Greygown), and, all
+      unnoticed by the idle, weary promenaders in the path of fashion, haul in a
+      basketful of blackfish, and at the same time look out across the shining
+      sapphire waters and inherit a wondrous good fortune of dreams&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Have glimpses that will make him less forlorn;
+      Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
+      Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But all this, you must remember, depends upon something secret and
+      incalculable, something that we can neither command nor predict. It is an
+      affair of gift, not of wages. Fish (and the other good things which are
+      like sauce to the catching of them) cast no shadow before. Water is the
+      emblem of instability. No one can tell what he shall draw out of it until
+      he has taken in his line. Herein are found the true charm and profit of
+      angling for all persons of a pure and childlike mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Look at those two venerable gentlemen floating in a skiff upon the clear
+      waters of Lake George. One of them is a successful statesman, an
+      ex-President of the United States, a lawyer versed in all the curious
+      eccentricities of the "lawless science of the law." The other is a learned
+      doctor of medicine, able to give a name to all diseases from which men
+      have imagined that they suffered, and to invent new ones for those who are
+      tired of vulgar maladies. But all their learning is forgotten, their cares
+      and controversies are laid aside, in "innocuous desuetude." The Summer
+      School of Sociology is assembled. The Medical Congress is in session.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But they care not&mdash;no, not so much as the value of a single live
+      bait. The sun shines upon them with a fervent heat, but it irks them not.
+      The rain descends, and the winds blow and beat upon them, but they are
+      unmoved. They are securely anchored here in the lee of Sabbath-Day Point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What enchantment binds them to that inconsiderable spot? What magic fixes
+      their eyes upon the point of a fishing-rod, as if it were the finger of
+      destiny? It is the enchantment of uncertainty: the same natural magic that
+      draws the little suburban boys in the spring of the year, with their
+      strings and pin-hooks, around the shallow ponds where dace and redfins
+      hide; the same irresistible charm that fixes a row of city gamins, like
+      ragged and disreputable fish-crows, on the end of a pier where blear-eyed
+      flounders sometimes lurk in the muddy water. Let the philosopher explain
+      it as he will. Let the moralist reprehend it as he chooses. There is
+      nothing that attracts human nature more powerfully than the sport of
+      tempting the unknown with a fishing-line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those ancient anglers have set out upon an exodus from the tedious realm
+      of the definite, the fixed, the must-certainly-come-to-pass. They are on a
+      holiday in the free country of peradventure. They do not know at this
+      moment whether the next turn of Fortune's reel will bring up a perch or a
+      pickerel, a sunfish or a black bass. It may be a hideous catfish or a
+      squirming eel, or it may be a lake-trout, the grand prize in the Lake
+      George lottery. There they sit, those gray-haired lads, full of hope, yet
+      equally prepared for resignation; taking no thought for the morrow, and
+      ready to make the best of to-day; harmless and happy players at the best
+      of all games of chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In other words," I hear some severe and sour-complexioned reader say, "in
+      plain language, they are a pair of old gamblers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, if it pleases you to call honest men by a bad name. But they risk
+      nothing that is not their own; and if they lose, they are not
+      impoverished. They desire nothing that belongs to other men; and if they
+      win, no one is robbed. If all gambling were like that, it would be
+      difficult to see the harm in it. Indeed, a daring moralist might even
+      assert, and prove by argument, that so innocent a delight in the taking of
+      chances is an aid to virtue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do you remember Martin Luther's reasoning on the subject of "excellent
+      large pike"? He maintains that God would never have created them so good
+      to the taste, if He had not meant them to be eaten. And for the same
+      reason I conclude that this world would never have been left so full of
+      uncertainties, nor human nature framed so as to find a peculiar joy and
+      exhilaration in meeting them bravely and cheerfully, if it had not been
+      divinely intended that most of our amusement and much of our education
+      should come from this source.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Chance" is a disreputable word, I know. It is supposed by many pious
+      persons to be improper and almost blasphemous to use it. But I am not one
+      of those who share this verbal prejudice. I am inclined rather to believe
+      that it is a good word to which a bad reputation has been given. I feel
+      grateful to that admirable "psychologist who writes like a novelist," Mr.
+      William James, for his brilliant defence of it. For what does it mean,
+      after all, but that some things happen in a certain way which might have
+      happened in another way? Where is the immorality, the irreverence, the
+      atheism in such a supposition? Certainly God must be competent to govern a
+      world in which there are possibilities of various kinds, just as well as
+      one in which every event is inevitably determined beforehand. St. Peter
+      and the other fishermen-disciples on the Lake of Galilee were perfectly
+      free to cast their net on either side of the ship. So far as they could
+      see, so far as any one could see, it was a matter of chance where they
+      chose to cast it. But it was not until they let it down, at the Master's
+      word, on the right side that they had good luck. And not the least element
+      of their joy in the draft of fishes was that it brought a change of
+      fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leave the metaphysics of the question on the table for the present. As a
+      matter of fact, it is plain that our human nature is adapted to conditions
+      variable, undetermined, and hidden from our view. We are not fitted to
+      live in a world where a + b always equals c, and there is nothing more to
+      follow. The interest of life's equation arrives with the appearance of x,
+      the unknown quantity. A settled, unchangeable, clearly foreseeable order
+      of things does not suit our constitution. It tends to melancholy and a
+      fatty heart. Creatures of habit we are undoubtedly; but it is one of our
+      most fixed habits to be fond of variety. The man who is never surprised
+      does not know the taste of happiness, and unless the unexpected sometimes
+      happens to us, we are most grievously disappointed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Much of the tediousness of highly civilized life comes from its smoothness
+      and regularity. To-day is like yesterday, and we think that we can predict
+      to-morrow. Of course we cannot really do so. The chances are still there.
+      But we have covered them up so deeply with the artificialities of life
+      that we lose sight of them. It seems as if everything in our neat little
+      world were arranged, and provided for, and reasonably sure to come to
+      pass. The best way of escape from this TAEDIUM VITAE is through a
+      recreation like angling, not only because it is so evidently a matter of
+      luck, but also because it tempts us into a wilder, freer life. It leads
+      almost inevitably to camping out, which is a wholesome and sanitary
+      imprudence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is curious and pleasant, to my apprehension, to observe how many people
+      in New England, one of whose States is called "the land of Steady Habits,"
+      are sensible of the joy of changing them,&mdash;out of doors. These good
+      folk turn out from their comfortable farm-houses and their snug suburban
+      cottages to go a-gypsying for a fortnight among the mountains or beside
+      the sea. You see their white tents gleaming from the pine-groves around
+      the little lakes, and catch glimpses of their bathing-clothes drying in
+      the sun on the wiry grass that fringes the sand-dunes. Happy fugitives
+      from the bondage of routine! They have found out that a long journey is
+      not necessary to a good vacation. You may reach the Forest of Arden in a
+      buckboard. The Fortunate Isles are within sailing distance in a dory. And
+      a voyage on the river Pactolus is open to any one who can paddle a canoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was talking&mdash;or rather listening&mdash;with a barber, the other
+      day, in the sleepy old town of Rivermouth. He told me, in one of those
+      easy confidences which seem to make the razor run more smoothly, that it
+      had been the custom of his family, for some twenty years past, to forsake
+      their commodious dwelling on Anchor Street every summer, and emigrate six
+      miles, in a wagon to Wallis Sands, where they spent the month of August
+      very merrily under canvas. Here was a sensible household for you! They did
+      not feel bound to waste a year's income on a four weeks' holiday. They
+      were not of those foolish folk who run across the sea, carefully carrying
+      with them the same tiresome mind that worried them at home. They got a
+      change of air by making an alteration of life. They escaped from the land
+      of Egypt by stepping out into the wilderness and going a-fishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people who always live in houses, and sleep on beds, and walk on
+      pavements, and buy their food from butchers and bakers and grocers, are
+      not the most blessed inhabitants of this wide and various earth. The
+      circumstances of their existence are too mathematical and secure for
+      perfect contentment. They live at second or third hand. They are boarders
+      in the world. Everything is done for them by somebody else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is almost impossible for anything very interesting to happen to them.
+      They must get their excitement out of the newspapers, reading of the
+      hairbreadth escapes and moving accidents that befall people in real life.
+      What do these tame ducks really know of the adventure of living? If the
+      weather is bad, they are snugly housed. If it is cold, there is a furnace
+      in the cellar. If they are hungry, the shops are near at hand. It is all
+      as dull, flat, stale, and unprofitable as adding up a column of figures.
+      They might as well be brought up in an incubator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when man abides in tents, after the manner of the early patriarchs,
+      the face of the world is renewed. The vagaries of the clouds become
+      significant. You watch the sky with a lover's look, eager to know whether
+      it will smile or frown. When you lie at night upon your bed of boughs and
+      hear the rain pattering on the canvas close above your head, you wonder
+      whether it is a long storm or only a shower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rising wind shakes the tent-flaps. Are the pegs well driven down and
+      the cords firmly fastened? You fall asleep again and wake later, to hear
+      the rain drumming still more loudly on the tight cloth, and the big breeze
+      snoring through the forest, and the waves plunging along the beach. A
+      stormy day? Well, you must cut plenty of wood and keep the camp-fire
+      glowing, for it will be hard to start it up again, if you let it get too
+      low. There is little use in fishing or hunting in such a storm. But there
+      is plenty to do in the camp: guns to be cleaned, tackle to be put in
+      order, clothes to be mended, a good story of adventure to be read, a
+      belated letter to be written to some poor wretch in a summer hotel, a game
+      of hearts or cribbage to be played, or a hunting-trip to be planned for
+      the return of fair weather. The tent is perfectly dry. A little trench dug
+      around it carries off the surplus water, and luckily it is pitched with
+      the side to the lake, so that you get the pleasant heat of the fire
+      without the unendurable smoke. Cooking in the rain has its disadvantages.
+      But how good the supper tastes when it is served up on a tin plate, with
+      an empty box for a table and a roll of blankets at the foot of the bed for
+      a seat!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A day, two days, three days, the storm may continue, according to your
+      luck. I have been out in the woods for a fortnight without a drop of rain
+      or a sign of dust. Again, I have tented on the shore of a big lake for a
+      week, waiting for an obstinate tempest to pass by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Look now, just at nightfall: is there not a little lifting and breaking of
+      the clouds in the west, a little shifting of the wind toward a better
+      quarter? You go to bed with cheerful hopes. A dozen times in the darkness
+      you are half awake, and listening drowsily to the sounds of the storm. Are
+      they waxing or waning? Is that louder pattering a new burst of rain, or is
+      it only the plumping of the big drops as they are shaken from the trees?
+      See, the dawn has come, and the gray light glimmers through the canvas. In
+      a little while you will know your fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Look! There is a patch of bright yellow radiance on the peak of the tent.
+      The shadow of a leaf dances over it. The sun must be shining. Good luck!
+      and up with you, for it is a glorious morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woods are glistening as fresh and fair as if they had been new-created
+      overnight. The water sparkles, and tiny waves are dancing and splashing
+      all along the shore. Scarlet berries of the mountain-ash hang around the
+      lake. A pair of kingfishers dart back and forth across the bay, in flashes
+      of living blue. A black eagle swings silently around his circle, far up in
+      the cloudless sky. The air is full of pleasant sounds, but there is no
+      noise. The world is full of joyful life, but there is no crowd and no
+      confusion. There is no factory chimney to darken the day with its smoke,
+      no trolley-car to split the silence with its shriek and smite the
+      indignant ear with the clanging of its impudent bell. No lumberman's axe
+      has robbed the encircling forests of their glory of great trees. No fires
+      have swept over the hills and left behind them the desolation of a bristly
+      landscape. All is fresh and sweet, calm and clear and bright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Twas rather a rude jest of Nature, that tempest of yesterday. But if you
+      have taken it in good part, you are all the more ready for her caressing
+      mood to-day. And now you must be off to get your dinner&mdash;not to order
+      it at a shop, but to look for it in the woods and waters. You are ready to
+      do your best with rod or gun. You will use all the skill you have as
+      hunter or fisherman. But what you shall find, and whether you shall
+      subsist on bacon and biscuit, or feast on trout and partridges, is, after
+      all, a matter of luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I profess that it appears to me not only pleasant, but also salutary, to
+      be in this condition. It brings us home to the plain realities of life; it
+      teaches us that a man ought to work before he eats; it reminds us that,
+      after he has done all he can, he must still rely upon a mysterious bounty
+      for his daily bread. It says to us, in homely and familiar words, that
+      life was meant to be uncertain, that no man can tell what a day will bring
+      forth, and that it is the part of wisdom to be prepared for
+      disappointments and grateful for all kinds of small mercies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a story in that fragrant book, THE LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS,
+      which I wish to transcribe here, without tying a moral to it, lest any one
+      should accuse me of preaching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hence [says the quaint old chronicler], having assigned to his companions
+      the other parts of the world, St. Francis, taking Brother Maximus as his
+      comrade, set forth toward the province of France. And coming one day to a
+      certain town, and being very hungry, they begged their bread as they went,
+      according to the rule of their order, for the love of God. And St. Francis
+      went through one quarter of the town, and Brother Maximus through another.
+      But forasmuch as St. Francis was a man mean and low of stature, and hence
+      was reputed a vile beggar by such as knew him not, he only received a few
+      scanty crusts and mouthfuls of dry bread. But to Brother Maximus, who was
+      large and well favoured, were given good pieces and big, and an abundance
+      of bread, yea, whole loaves. Having thus begged, they met together without
+      the town to eat, at a place where there was a clear spring and a fair
+      large stone, upon which each spread forth the gifts that he had received.
+      And St. Francis, seeing that the pieces of bread begged by Brother Maximus
+      were bigger and better than his own, rejoiced greatly, saying, 'Oh,
+      Brother Maximus, we are not worthy of so great a treasure.' As he repeated
+      these words many times, Brother Maximus made answer: 'Father, how can you
+      talk of treasures when there is such great poverty and such lack of all
+      things needful? Here is neither napkin nor knife, neither board nor
+      trencher, neither house nor table, neither man-servant nor maid-servant.'
+      St. Francis replied: 'And this is what I reckon a great treasure, where
+      naught is made ready by human industry, but all that is here is prepared
+      by Divine Providence, as is plainly set forth in the bread which we have
+      begged, in the table of fair stone, and in the spring of clear water. And
+      therefore I would that we should pray to God that He teach us with all our
+      hearts to love the treasure of holy poverty, which is so noble a thing,
+      and whose servant is God the Lord.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know of but one fairer description of a repast in the open air; and that
+      is where we are told how certain poor fishermen, coming in very weary
+      after a night of toil (and one of them very wet after swimming ashore),
+      found their Master standing on the bank of the lake waiting for them. But
+      it seems that he must have been busy in their behalf while he was waiting;
+      for there was a bright fire of coals burning on the shore, and a goodly
+      fish broiling thereon, and bread to eat with it. And when the Master had
+      asked them about their fishing, he said, "Come, now, and get your
+      breakfast." So they sat down around the fire, and with his own hands he
+      served them with the bread and the fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all the banquets that have ever been given upon earth, that is the one
+      in which I would rather have had a share.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it is now time that we should return to our fishing. And let us
+      observe with gratitude that almost all of the pleasures that are connected
+      with this pursuit&mdash;its accompaniments and variations, which run along
+      with the tune and weave an embroidery of delight around it&mdash;have an
+      accidental and gratuitous quality about them. They are not to be counted
+      upon beforehand. They are like something that is thrown into a purchase by
+      a generous and open-handed dealer, to make us pleased with our bargain and
+      inclined to come back to the same shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I knew, for example, before setting out for a day on the brook,
+      precisely what birds I should see, and what pretty little scenes in the
+      drama of woodland life were to be enacted before my eyes, the expedition
+      would lose more than half its charm. But, in fact, it is almost entirely a
+      matter of luck, and that is why it never grows tiresome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ornithologist knows pretty well where to look for the birds, and he
+      goes directly to the places where he can find them, and proceeds to study
+      them intelligently and systematically. But the angler who idles down the
+      stream takes them as they come, and all his observations have a flavour of
+      surprise in them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hears a familiar song,&mdash;one that he has often heard at a distance,
+      but never identified,&mdash;a loud, cheery, rustic cadence sounding from a
+      low pine-tree close beside him. He looks up carefully through the needles
+      and discovers a hooded warbler, a tiny, restless creature, dressed in
+      green and yellow, with two white feathers in its tail, like the ends of a
+      sash, and a glossy little black bonnet drawn closely about its golden
+      head. He will never forget that song again. It will make the woods seem
+      homelike to him, many a time, as he hears it ringing through the
+      afternoon, like the call of a small country girl playing at hide-and-seek:
+      "See ME; here I BE."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another day he sits down on a mossy log beside a cold, trickling spring to
+      eat his lunch. It has been a barren day for birds. Perhaps he has fallen
+      into the fault of pursuing his sport too intensely, and tramped along the
+      stream looking for nothing but fish. Perhaps this part of the grove has
+      really been deserted by its feathered inhabitants, scared away by a
+      prowling hawk or driven out by nest-hunters. But now, without notice, the
+      luck changes. A surprise-party of redstarts breaks into full play around
+      him. All through the dark-green shadow of the hemlocks they flash like
+      little candles&mdash;CANDELITAS, the Cubans call them. Their brilliant
+      markings of orange and black, and their fluttering, airy, graceful
+      movements, make them most welcome visitors. There is no bird in the bush
+      easier to recognize or pleasanter to watch. They run along the branches
+      and dart and tumble through the air in fearless chase of invisible flies
+      and moths. All the time they keep unfolding and furling their rounded
+      tails, spreading them out and waving them and closing them suddenly, just
+      as the Cuban girls manage their fans. In fact, the redstarts are the tiny
+      fantail pigeons of the forest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are other things about the birds, besides their musical talents and
+      their good looks, that the fisherman has a chance to observe on his lucky
+      days. He may sea something of their courage and their devotion to their
+      young.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I suppose a bird is the bravest creature that lives, in spite of its
+      natural timidity. From which we may learn that true courage is not
+      incompatible with nervousness, and that heroism does not mean the absence
+      of fear, but the conquest of it. Who does not remember the first time that
+      he ever came upon a hen-partridge with her brood, as he was strolling
+      through the woods in June? How splendidly the old bird forgets herself in
+      her efforts to defend and hide her young!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Smaller birds are no less daring. One evening last summer I was walking up
+      the Ristigouche from Camp Harmony to fish for salmon at Mowett's Rock,
+      where my canoe was waiting for me. As I stepped out from a thicket on to
+      the shingly bank of the river, a spotted sandpiper teetered along before
+      me, followed by three young ones. Frightened at first, the mother flew out
+      a few feet over the water. But the piperlings could not fly, having no
+      feathers; and they crept under a crooked log. I rolled the log over very
+      gently and took one of the cowering creatures into my hand&mdash;a tiny,
+      palpitating scrap of life, covered with soft gray down, and peeping
+      shrilly, like a Liliputian chicken. And now the mother was transformed.
+      Her fear was changed into fury. She was a bully, a fighter, an Amazon in
+      feathers. She flew at me with loud cries, dashing herself almost into my
+      face. I was a tyrant, a robber, a kidnapper, and she called heaven to
+      witness that she would never give up her offspring without a struggle.
+      Then she changed her tactics and appealed to my baser passions. She fell
+      to the ground and fluttered around me as if her wing were broken. "Look!"
+      she seemed to say, "I am bigger than that poor little baby. If you must
+      eat something, eat me! My wing is lame. I can't fly. You can easily catch
+      me. Let that little bird go!" And so I did; and the whole family
+      disappeared in the bushes as if by magic. I wondered whether the mother
+      was saying to herself, after the manner of her sex, that men are stupid
+      things, after all, and no match for the cleverness of a female who stoops
+      to deception in a righteous cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, that trivial experience was what I call a piece of good luck&mdash;for
+      me, and, in the event, for the sandpiper. But it is doubtful whether it
+      would be quite so fresh and pleasant in the remembrance, if it had not
+      also fallen to my lot to take two uncommonly good salmon on that same
+      evening, in a dry season.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never believe a fisherman when he tells you that he does not care about
+      the fish he catches. He may say that he angles only for the pleasure of
+      being out-of-doors, and that he is just as well contented when he takes
+      nothing as when he makes a good catch. He may think so, but it is not
+      true. He is not telling a deliberate falsehood. He is only assuming an
+      unconscious pose, and indulging in a delicate bit of self-flattery. Even
+      if it were true, it would not be at all to his credit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Watch him on that lucky day when he comes home with a full basket of trout
+      on his shoulder, or a quartette of silver salmon covered with green
+      branches in the bottom of the canoe. His face is broader than it was when
+      he went out, and there is a sparkle of triumph in his eye. "It is naught,
+      it is naught," he says, in modest depreciation of his triumph. But you
+      shall see that he lingers fondly about the place where the fish are
+      displayed upon the grass, and does not fail to look carefully at the
+      scales when they are weighed, and has an attentive ear for the comments of
+      admiring spectators. You shall find, moreover, that he is not unwilling to
+      narrate the story of the capture&mdash;how the big fish rose short, four
+      times, to four different flies, and finally took a small Black Dose, and
+      played all over the pool, and ran down a terribly stiff rapid to the next
+      pool below, and sulked for twenty minutes, and had to be stirred up with
+      stones, and made such a long fight that, when he came in at last, the hold
+      of the hook was almost worn through, and it fell out of his mouth as he
+      touched the shore. Listen to this tale as it is told, with endless
+      variations, by every man who has brought home a fine fish, and you will
+      perceive that the fisherman does care for his luck, after all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And why not? I am no friend to the people who receive the bounties of
+      Providence without visible gratitude. When the sixpence falls into your
+      hat, you may laugh. When the messenger of an unexpected blessing takes you
+      by the hand and lifts you up and bids you walk, you may leap and run and
+      sing for joy, even as the lame man, whom St. Peter healed, skipped piously
+      and rejoiced aloud as he passed through the Beautiful Gate of the Temple.
+      There is no virtue in solemn indifference. Joy is just as much a duty as
+      beneficence is. Thankfulness is the other side of mercy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you have good luck in anything, you ought to be glad. Indeed, if you
+      are not glad, you are not really lucky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But boasting and self-glorification I would have excluded, and most of all
+      from the behaviour of the angler. He, more than other men, is dependent
+      for his success upon the favour of an unseen benefactor. Let his skill and
+      industry be never so great, he can do nothing unless LA BONNE CHANCE comes
+      to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was once fishing on a fair little river, the P'tit Saguenay, with two
+      excellent anglers and pleasant companions, H. E. G&mdash;&mdash; and C. S.
+      D&mdash;&mdash;. They had done all that was humanly possible to secure
+      good sport. The stream had been well preserved. They had boxes full of
+      beautiful flies, and casting-lines imported from England, and a rod for
+      every fish in the river. But the weather was "dour," and the water
+      "drumly," and every day the lumbermen sent a "drive" of ten thousand
+      spruce logs rushing down the flooded stream. For three days we had not
+      seen a salmon, and on the fourth, despairing, we went down to angle for
+      sea-trout in the tide of the greater Saguenay. There, in the salt water,
+      where men say the salmon never take the fly, H. E. G&mdash;&mdash;,
+      fishing with a small trout-rod, a poor, short line, and an ancient red
+      ibis of the common kind, rose and hooked a lordly salmon of at least
+      five-and-thirty pounds. Was not this pure luck?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pride is surely the most unbecoming of all vices in a fisherman. For
+      though intelligence and practice and patience and genius, and many other
+      noble things which modesty forbids him to mention, enter into his pastime,
+      so that it is, as Izaak Walton has firmly maintained, an art; yet, because
+      fortune still plays a controlling hand in the game, its net results should
+      never be spoken of with a haughty and vain spirit. Let not the angler
+      imitate Timoleon, who boasted of his luck and lost it. It is tempting
+      Providence to print the record of your wonderful catches in the sporting
+      newspapers; or at least, if it must be done, there should stand at the
+      head of the column some humble, thankful motto, like "NON NOBIS, DOMINE."
+      Even Father Izaak, when he has a fish on his line, says, with a due sense
+      of human limitations, "There is a trout now, and a good one too, IF I CAN
+      BUT HOLD HIM!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This reminds me that we left H. E. G&mdash;&mdash;, a few sentences back,
+      playing his unexpected salmon, on a trout-rod, in the Saguenay. Four times
+      that great fish leaped into the air; twice he suffered the pliant reed to
+      guide him toward the shore, and twice ran out again to deeper water. Then
+      his spirit awoke within him: he bent the rod like a willow wand, dashed
+      toward the middle of the river, broke the line as if it had been
+      pack-thread, and sailed triumphantly away to join the white porpoises that
+      were tumbling in the tide. "WHE-E-EW," they said, "WHE-E-EW! PSHA-A-AW!"
+      blowing out their breath in long, soft sighs as they rolled about like
+      huge snowballs in the black water. But what did H. E. G&mdash;&mdash; say?
+      He sat him quietly down upon a rock and reeled in the remnant of his line,
+      uttering these remarkable and Christian words: "Those porpoises," said he,
+      "describe the situation rather mildly. But it was good fun while it
+      lasted."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I remembered a saying of Walton: "Well, Scholar, you must endure
+      worse luck sometimes, or you will never make a good angler."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Or a good man, either, I am sure. For he who knows only how to enjoy, and
+      not to endure, is ill-fitted to go down the stream of life through such a
+      world as this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would not have you to suppose, gentle reader, that in discoursing of
+      fisherman's luck I have in mind only those things which may be taken with
+      a hook. It is a parable of human experience. I have been thinking, for
+      instance, of Walton's life as well as of his angling: of the losses and
+      sufferings that he, the firm Royalist, endured when the Commonwealth men
+      came marching into London town; of the consoling days that were granted to
+      him, in troublous times, on the banks of the Lea and the Dove and the New
+      River, and the good friends that he made there, with whom he took sweet
+      counsel in adversity; of the little children who played in his house for a
+      few years, and then were called away into the silent land where he could
+      hear their voices no longer. I was thinking how quietly and peaceably he
+      lived through it all, not complaining nor desponding, but trying to do his
+      work well, whether he was keeping a shop or writing hooks, and seeking to
+      prove himself an honest man and a cheerful companion, and never scorning
+      to take with a thankful heart such small comforts and recreations as came
+      to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a plain, homely, old-fashioned meditation, reader, but not
+      unprofitable. When I talk to you of fisherman's luck, I do not forget that
+      there are deeper things behind it. I remember that what we call our
+      fortunes, good or ill, are but the wise dealings and distributions of a
+      Wisdom higher, and a Kindness greater, than our own. And I suppose that
+      their meaning is that we should learn, by all the uncertainties of our
+      life, even the smallest, how to be brave and steady and temperate and
+      hopeful, whatever comes, because we believe that behind it all there lies
+      a purpose of good, and over it all there watches a providence of blessing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the school of life many branches of knowledge are taught. But the only
+      philosophy that amounts to anything, after all, is just the secret of
+      making friends with our luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE THRILLING MOMENT
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "In angling, as in all other recreations into which
+     excitement enters, we have to be on our guard, so that we
+     can at any moment throw a weight of self-control into the
+     scale against misfortune; and happily we can study to some
+     purpose, both to increase our pleasure in success and to
+     lessen our distress caused by what goes ill.  It is not only
+     in cases of great disasters, however, that the angler needs
+     self-control.  He is perpetually called upon to use it to
+     withstand small exasperations."
+
+     &mdash;SIR EDWARD GREY: Fly-Fishing.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Every moment of life, I suppose, is more or less of a turning-point.
+      Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, thicker than gnats at
+      sundown. We walk through a cloud of chances, and if we were always
+      conscious of them they would worry us almost to death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But happily our sense of uncertainty is soothed and cushioned by habit, so
+      that we can live comfortably with it. Only now and then, by way of special
+      excitement, it starts up wide awake. We perceive how delicately our
+      fortune is poised and balanced on the pivot of a single incident. We get a
+      peep at the oscillating needle, and, because we have happened to see it
+      tremble, we call our experience a crisis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meditative angler is not exempt from these sensational periods. There
+      are times when all the uncertainty of his chosen pursuit seems to condense
+      itself into one big chance, and stand out before him like a salmon on the
+      top wave of a rapid. He sees that his luck hangs by a single strand, and
+      he cannot tell whether it will hold or break. This is his thrilling
+      moment, and he never forgets it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mine came to me in the autumn of 1894, on the banks of the Unpronounceable
+      River, in the Province of Quebec. It was the last day, of the open season
+      for ouananiche, and we had set our hearts on catching some good fish to
+      take home with us. We walked up from the mouth of the river, four
+      preposterously long and rough miles, to the famous fishing-pool, "LA PLACE
+      DE PECHE A BOIVIN." It was a noble day for walking; the air was clear and
+      crisp, and all the hills around us were glowing with the crimson foliage
+      of those little bushes which God created to make burned lands look
+      beautiful. The trail ended in a precipitous gully, down which we scrambled
+      with high hopes, and fishing-rods unbroken, only to find that the river
+      was in a condition which made angling absurd if not impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There must have been a cloud-burst among the mountains, for the water was
+      coming down in flood. The stream was bank-full, gurgling and eddying out
+      among the bushes, and rushing over the shoal where the fish used to lie,
+      in a brown torrent ten feet deep. Our last day with the land-locked salmon
+      seemed destined to be a failure, and we must wait eight months before we
+      could have another. There were three of us in the disappointment, and we
+      shared it according to our temperaments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paul virtuously resolved not to give up while there was a chance left, and
+      wandered down-stream to look for an eddy where he might pick up a small
+      fish. Ferdinand, our guide, resigned himself without a sigh to the
+      consolation of eating blueberries, which he always did with great
+      cheerfulness. But I, being more cast down than either of my comrades,
+      sought out a convenient seat among the rocks, and, adapting my anatomy as
+      well as possible to the irregularities of nature's upholstery, pulled from
+      my pocket AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE DALE, and settled down to read
+      myself into a Christian frame of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before beginning, my eyes roved sadly over the pool once more. It was but
+      a casual glance. It lasted only for an instant. But in that fortunate
+      fragment of time I distinctly saw the broad tail of a big ouananiche rise
+      and disappear in the swift water at the very head of the pool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately the whole aspect of affairs was changed. Despondency vanished,
+      and the river glittered with the beams of rising hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such is the absurd disposition of some anglers. They never see a fish
+      without believing that they can catch him; but if they see no fish, they
+      are inclined to think that the river is empty and the world hollow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I said nothing to my companions. It would have been unkind to disturb them
+      with expectations which might never be realized. My immediate duty was to
+      get within casting distance of that salmon as soon as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The way along the shore of the pool was difficult. The bank was very
+      steep, and the rocks by the river's edge were broken and glibbery.
+      Presently I came to a sheer wall of stone, perhaps thirty feet high,
+      rising directly from the deep water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tiny ledge or crevice running part of the way across the face
+      of this wall, and by this four-inch path I edged along, holding my rod in
+      one hand, and clinging affectionately with the other to such clumps of
+      grass and little bushes as I could find. There was one small huckleberry
+      plant to which I had a particular attachment. It was fortunately a firm
+      little bush, and as I held fast to it I remembered Tennyson's poem which
+      begins
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Flower in the crannied wall,"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      and reflected that if I should succeed in plucking out this flower, "root
+      and all," it would probably result in an even greater increase of
+      knowledge than the poet contemplated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ledge in the rock now came to an end. But below me in the pool there
+      was a sunken reef; and on this reef a long log had caught, with one end
+      sticking out of the water, within jumping distance. It was the only
+      chance. To go back would have been dangerous. An angler with a large
+      family dependent upon him for support has no right to incur unnecessary
+      perils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides, the fish was waiting for me at the upper end of the pool!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I jumped; landed on the end of the log; felt it settle slowly down; ran
+      along it like a small boy on a seesaw, and leaped off into shallow water
+      just as the log rolled from the ledge and lunged out into the stream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It went wallowing through the pool and down the rapid like a playful
+      hippopotamus. I watched it with interest and congratulated myself that I
+      was no longer embarked upon it. On that craft a voyage down the
+      Unpronounceable River would have been short but far from merry. The "all
+      ashore" bell was not rung early enough. I just got off, with not half a
+      second to spare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now all was well, for I was within reach of the fish. A little
+      scrambling over the rocks brought me to a point where I could easily cast
+      over him. He was lying in a swift, smooth, narrow channel between two
+      large stones. It was a snug resting-place, and no doubt he would remain
+      there for some time. So I took out my fly-book and prepared to angle for
+      him according to the approved rules of the art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing is more foolish in sport than the habit of precipitation. And yet
+      it is a fault to which I am singularly subject. As a boy, in Brooklyn, I
+      never came in sight of the Capitoline Skating Pond, after a long ride in
+      the horse-cars, without breaking into a run along the board walk, buckling
+      on my skates in a furious hurry, and flinging myself impetuously upon the
+      ice, as if I feared that it would melt away before I could reach it. Now
+      this, I confess, is a grievous defect, which advancing years have not
+      entirely cured; and I found it necessary to take myself firmly, as it
+      were, by the mental coat-collar, and resolve not to spoil the chance of
+      catching the only ouananiche in the Unpronounceable River by undue haste
+      in fishing for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I carefully tested a brand-new leader, and attached it to the line with
+      great deliberation and the proper knot. Then I gave my whole mind to the
+      important question of a wise selection of flies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is astonishing how much time and mental anxiety a man can spend on an
+      apparently simple question like this. When you are buying flies in a shop
+      it seems as if you never had half enough. You keep on picking out a
+      half-dozen of each new variety as fast as the enticing salesman shows them
+      to you. You stroll through the streets of Montreal or Quebec and drop in
+      at every fishing-tackle dealer's to see whether you can find a few more
+      good flies. Then, when you come to look over your collection at the
+      critical moment on the bank of a stream, it seems as if you had ten times
+      too many. And, spite of all, the precise fly that you need is not there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You select a couple that you think fairly good, lay them down beside you
+      in the grass, and go on looking through the book for something better.
+      Failing to satisfy yourself, you turn to pick up those that you have laid
+      out, and find that they have mysteriously vanished from the face of the
+      earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then you struggle with naughty words and relapse into a condition of
+      mental palsy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Precipitation is a fault. But deliberation, for a person of precipitate
+      disposition, is a vice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The best thing to do in such a case is to adopt some abstract theory of
+      action without delay, and put it into practice without hesitation. Then if
+      you fail, you can throw the responsibility on the theory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, in regard to flies there are two theories. The old, conservative
+      theory is, that on a bright day you should use a dark, dull fly, because
+      it is less conspicuous. So I followed that theory first and put on a Great
+      Dun and a Dark Montreal. I cast them delicately over the fish, but he
+      would not look at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I perverted myself to the new, radical theory which says that on a
+      bright day you must use a light, gay fly, because it is more in harmony
+      with the sky, and therefore less noticeable. Accordingly I put on a
+      Professor and a Parmacheene Belle; but this combination of learning and
+      beauty had no attraction for the ouananiche.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I fell back on a theory of my own, to the effect that the ouananiche
+      have an aversion to red, and prefer yellow and brown. So I tried various
+      combinations of flies in which these colours predominated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I abandoned all theories and went straight through my book, trying
+      something from every page, and winding up with that lure which the guides
+      consider infallible,&mdash;"a Jock o' Scott that cost fifty cents at
+      Quebec." But it was all in vain. I was ready to despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this psychological moment I heard behind me a voice of hope,&mdash;the
+      song of a grasshopper: not one of those fat-legged, green-winged imbeciles
+      that feebly tumble in the summer fields, but a game grasshopper,&mdash;one
+      of those thin-shanked, brown-winged fellows that leap like kangaroos, and
+      fly like birds, and sing KRI-KAREE-KAREE-KRI in their flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not really a song, I know, but it sounds like one; and, if you had
+      heard that Kri-karee carolling as I chased him over the rocks, you would
+      have been sure that he was mocking me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believed that he was the predestined lure for that ouananiche; but it
+      was hard to persuade him to fulfill his destiny. I slapped at him with my
+      hat, but he was not there. I grasped at him on the bushes, and brought
+      away "nothing but leaves." At last he made his way to the very edge of the
+      water and poised himself on a stone, with his legs well tucked in for a
+      long leap and a bold flight to the other side of the river. It was my
+      final opportunity. I made a desperate grab at it and caught the
+      grasshopper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My premonition proved to be correct. When that Kri-karee, invisibly
+      attached to my line, went floating down the stream, the ouananiche was
+      surprised. It was the fourteenth of September, and he had supposed the
+      grasshopper season was over. The unexpected temptation was too strong for
+      him. He rose with a rush, and in an instant I was fast to the best
+      land-locked salmon of the year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the situation was not without its embarrassments. My rod weighed only
+      four and a quarter ounces; the fish weighed between six and seven pounds.
+      The water was furious and headstrong. I had only thirty yards of line and
+      no landing-net.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "HOLA! FERDINAND!" I cried. "APPORTE LA NETTE, VITE! A BEAUTY! HURRY UP!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought it must be an hour while he was making his way over the hill,
+      through the underbrush, around the cliff. Again and again the fish ran out
+      my line almost to the last turn. A dozen times he leaped from the water,
+      shaking his silvery sides. Twice he tried to cut the leader across a
+      sunken ledge. But at last he was played out, and came in quietly towards
+      the point of the rock. At the same moment Ferdinand appeared with the net.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the use of the net is really the most difficult part of angling. And
+      Ferdinand is the best netsman in the Lake St. John country. He never makes
+      the mistake of trying to scoop a fish in motion. He does not grope around
+      with aimless, futile strokes as if he were feeling for something in the
+      dark. He does not entangle the dropper-fly in the net and tear the
+      tail-fly out of the fish's mouth. He does not get excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He quietly sinks the net in the water, and waits until he can see the fish
+      distinctly, lying perfectly still and within reach. Then he makes a swift
+      movement, like that of a mower swinging the scythe, takes the fish into
+      the net head-first, and lands him without a slip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I felt sure that Ferdinand was going to do the trick in precisely this way
+      with my ouananiche. Just at the right instant he made one quick, steady
+      swing of the arms, and&mdash;the head of the net broke clean off the
+      handle and went floating away with the fish in it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All seemed to be lost. But Ferdinand was equal to the occasion. He seized
+      a long, crooked stick that lay in a pile of driftwood on the shore, sprang
+      into the water up to his waist, caught the net as it drifted past, and
+      dragged it to land, with the ultimate ouananiche, the prize of the season,
+      still glittering through its meshes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the story of my most thrilling moment as an angler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But which was the moment of the deepest thrill?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was it when the huckleberry bush saved me from a watery grave, or when the
+      log rolled under my feet and started down the river? Was it when the fish
+      rose, or when the net broke, or when the long stick captured it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, it was none of these. It was when the Kri-karee sat with his legs
+      tucked under him on the brink of the stream. That was the turning-point.
+      The fortunes of the day depended on the comparative quickness of the
+      reflex action of his neural ganglia and mine. That was the thrilling
+      moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see it now. A crisis is really the commonest thing in the world. The
+      reason why life sometimes seems dull to us is because we do not perceive
+      the importance and the excitement of getting bait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      TALKABILITY
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A PRELUDE AND THEME WITH VARIATIONS
+    </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "He praises a meditative life, and with evident sincerity:
+     but we feel that he liked nothing so well as good talk."
+
+     &mdash;JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: Walton.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I. PRELUDE&mdash;ON AN OLD, FOOLISH MAXIM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The inventor of the familiar maxim that "fishermen must not talk" is lost
+      in the mists of antiquity, and well deserves his fate. For a more foolish
+      rule, a conventionality more obscure and aimless in its tyranny, was never
+      imposed upon an innocent and honourable occupation, to diminish its
+      pleasure and discount its profits. Why, in the name of all that is genial,
+      should anglers go about their harmless sport in stealthy silence like
+      conspirators, or sit together in a boat, dumb, glum, and penitential, like
+      naughty schoolboys on the bench of disgrace? 'Tis an Omorcan superstition;
+      a rule without a reason; a venerable, idiotic fashion invented to repress
+      lively spirits and put a premium on stupidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my part, I incline rather to the opinion of the Neapolitan fishermen
+      who maintain that a certain amount of noise, of certain kinds, is likely
+      to improve the fishing, and who have a particular song, very sweet and
+      charming, which they sing to draw the fishes around them. It is narrated,
+      likewise, of the good St. Brandan, that on his notable voyage from Ireland
+      in search of Paradise, he chanted the service for St. Peter's day so
+      pleasantly that a subaqueous audience of all sorts and sizes was
+      attracted, insomuch that the other monks began to be afraid, and begged
+      the abbot that he would sing a little lower, for they were not quite sure
+      of the intention of the congregation. Of St. Anthony of Padua it is said
+      that he even succeeded in persuading the fishes, in great multitudes, to
+      listen to a sermon; and that when it was ended (it must be noted that it
+      was both short and cheerful) they bowed their heads and moved their bodies
+      up and down with every mark of fondness and approval of what the holy
+      father had spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If we can believe this, surely we need not be incredulous of things which
+      seem to be no less, but rather more, in harmony with the course of nature.
+      Creatures who are sensible to the attractions of a sermon can hardly be
+      indifferent to the charm of other kinds of discourse. I can easily imagine
+      a company of grayling wishing to overhear a conversation between I. W. and
+      his affectionate (but somewhat prodigal) son and servant, Charles Cotton;
+      and surely every intelligent salmon in Scotland might have been glad to
+      hear Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd bandy jests and swap
+      stories. As for trout,&mdash;was there one in Massachusetts that would not
+      have been curious to listen to the intimate opinions of Daniel Webster as
+      he loafed along the banks of the Marshpee,&mdash;or is there one in
+      Pennsylvania to-day that might not be drawn with interest and delight to
+      the feet of Joseph Jefferson, telling how he conceived and wrote RIP VAN
+      WINKLE on the banks of a trout-stream?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fishermen must be silent? On the contrary, it is far more likely that good
+      talk may promote good fishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this, however, goes upon the assumption that fish can hear, in the
+      proper sense of the word. And this, it must be confessed, is an assumption
+      not yet fully verified. Experienced anglers and students of fishy ways are
+      divided upon the question. It is beyond a doubt that all fishes, except
+      the very lowest forms, have ears. But then so have all men; and yet we
+      have the best authority for believing that there are many who "having
+      ears, hear not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ears of fishes, for the most part, are inclosed in their skull, and
+      have no outward opening. Water conveys sound, as every country boy knows
+      who has tried the experiment of diving to the bottom of the swimming-hole
+      and knocking two big stones together. But I doubt whether any country boy,
+      engaged in this interesting scientific experiment, has heard the
+      conversation of his friends on the bank who were engaged in hiding his
+      clothes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are many curious and more or less venerable stories to the effect
+      that fishes may be trained to assemble at the ringing of a bell or the
+      beating of a drum. Lucian, a writer of the second century, tells of a
+      certain lake wherein many sacred fishes were kept, of which the largest
+      had names given to them, and came when they were called. But Lucian was
+      not a man of especially good reputation, and there is an air of
+      improbability about his statement that the LARGEST fishes came. This is
+      not the custom of the largest fishes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the present century there was a tale of an eel in a garden-well, in
+      Scotland, which would come to be fed out of a spoon when the children
+      called him by his singularly inappropriate name of Rob Roy. This seems a
+      more likely story than Lucian's; at all events it comes from a more
+      orthodox atmosphere. But before giving it full credence, I should like to
+      know whether the children, when they called "Rob Roy!" stood where the eel
+      could see the spoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other side of the question, we may quote Mr. Ronalds, also a
+      Scotchman, and the learned author of THE FLY-FISHER'S ENTOMOLOGY, who
+      conducted a series of experiments which proved that even trout, the most
+      fugacious of fish, are not in the least disturbed by the discharge of a
+      gun, provided the flash is concealed. Mr. Henry P. Wells, the author of
+      THE AMERICAN SALMON ANGLER, says that he has "never been able to make a
+      sound in the air which seemed to produce the slightest effect upon trout
+      in the water."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So the controversy on the hearing of fishes continues, and the conclusion
+      remains open. Every man is at liberty to embrace that side which pleases
+      him best. You may think that the finny tribes are as sensitive to sound as
+      Fine Ear, in the German fairy-tale, who could hear the grass grow. Or you
+      may hold the opposite opinion, that they are
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Deafer than the blue-eyed cat."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But whichever theory you adopt, in practice, if you are a wise fisherman,
+      you will steer a middle course, between one thing which must be left
+      undone and another thing which should be done. You will refrain from
+      stamping on the bank, or knocking on the side of the boat, or dragging the
+      anchor among the stones on the bottom; for when the water vibrates the
+      fish are likely to vanish. But you will indulge as freely as you please in
+      pleasant discourse with your comrade; for it is certain that fishing is
+      never hindered, and may even be helped, in one way or another, by good
+      talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should therefore have no hesitation in advising any one to choose, for
+      companionship on an angling expedition, long or short, a person who has
+      the rare merit of being TALKABLE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II. THEME&mdash;ON A SMALL, USEFUL VIRTUE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Talkable" is not a new adjective. But it needs a new definition, and the
+      complement of a corresponding noun. I would fain set down on paper some
+      observations and reflections which may serve to make its meaning clear,
+      and render due praise to that most excellent quality in man or woman,&mdash;especially
+      in anglers,&mdash;the small but useful virtue of TALKABILITY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert Louis Stevenson uses the word "talkable" in one of his essays to
+      denote a certain distinction among the possible subjects of human speech.
+      There are some things, he says in effect, about which you can really talk;
+      and there are other things about which you cannot properly talk at all,
+      but only dispute, or harangue, or prose, or moralize, or chatter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After mature consideration I have arrived at the opinion that this
+      distinction among the themes of speech is an illusion. It does not exist.
+      All subjects, "the foolish things of the world, and the weak things of the
+      world, and base things of the world, yea, and things that are not," may
+      provide matter for good talk, if only the right people are engaged in the
+      enterprise. I know a man who can make a description of the weather as
+      entertaining as a tune on the violin; and even on the threadbare theme of
+      the waywardness of domestic servants, I have heard a discreet woman play
+      the most diverting and instructive variations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, the quality of talkability does not mark a distinction among things;
+      it denotes a difference among people. It is not an attribute unequally
+      distributed among material objects and abstract ideas. It is a virtue
+      which belongs to the mind and moral character of certain persons. It is a
+      reciprocal human quality; active as well as passive; a power of bestowing
+      and receiving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An amiable person is one who has a capacity for loving and being loved. An
+      affable person is one who is ready to speak and to be spoken to,&mdash;as,
+      for example, Milton's "affable archangel" Raphael; though it must be
+      confessed that he laid the chief emphasis on the active side of his
+      affability. A "clubable" person (to use a word which Dr. Samuel Johnson
+      invented but did not put into his dictionary) is one who is fit for the
+      familiar give and take of club-life. A talkable person, therefore, is one
+      whose nature and disposition invite the easy interchange of thoughts and
+      feelings, one in whose company it is a pleasure to talk or to be talked
+      to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this good quality of talkability is to be distinguished, very strictly
+      and inflexibly, from the bad quality which imitates it and often brings it
+      into discredit. I mean the vice of talkativeness. That is a selfish,
+      one-sided, inharmonious affair, full of discomfort, and productive of most
+      unchristian feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You may observe the operations of this vice not only in human beings, but
+      also in birds. All the birds in the bush can make some kind of a noise;
+      and most of them like to do it; and some of them like it a great deal and
+      do it very much. But it is not always for edification, nor are the most
+      vociferous and garrulous birds commonly the most pleasing. A parrot, for
+      instance, in your neighbour's back yard, in the summer time, when the
+      windows are open, is not an aid to the development of Christian character.
+      I knew a man who had to stay in the city all summer, and in the autumn was
+      asked to describe the character and social standing of a new family that
+      had moved into his neighbourhood. Were they "nice people," well-bred,
+      intelligent, respectable? "Well," said he, "I don't know what your
+      standards are, and would prefer not to say anything libellous; but I'll
+      tell you in a word,&mdash;they are the kind of people that keep a parrot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then there is the English Sparrow! What an insufferable chatterbox, what
+      an incurable scold, what a voluble and tiresome blackguard is this little
+      feathered cockney. There is not a sweet or pleasant word in all his
+      vocabulary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am convinced that he talks altogether of scandals and fights and
+      street-sweepings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The kingdom of ornithology is divided into two departments,&mdash;real
+      birds and English sparrows. English sparrows are not real birds; they are
+      little beasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a church in Brooklyn which was once covered with a great and
+      spreading vine, in which the sparrows built innumerable nests. These
+      ungodly little birds kept up such a din that it was impossible to hear the
+      service of the sanctuary. The faithful clergy strained their voices to the
+      verge of ministerial sore throat, but the people had no peace in their
+      devotions until the vine was cut down, and the Anglican intruders were
+      evicted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A talkative person is like an English sparrow,&mdash;a bird that cannot
+      sing, and will sing, and ought to be persuaded not to try to sing. But a
+      talkable person has the gift that belongs to the wood thrush and the veery
+      and the wren, the oriole and the white-throat and the rose-breasted
+      grosbeak, the mockingbird and the robin (sometimes); and the brown thrush;
+      yes, the brown thrush has it to perfection, if you can catch him alone,&mdash;the
+      gift of being interesting, charming, delightful, in the most off-hand and
+      various modes of utterance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Talkability is not at all the same thing as eloquence. The eloquent man
+      surprises, overwhelms, and sometimes paralyzes us by the display of his
+      power. Great orators are seldom good talkers. Oratory in exercise is
+      masterful and jealous, and intolerant of all interruptions. Oratory in
+      preparation is silent, self-centred, uncommunicative. The painful truth of
+      this remark may be seen in the row of countenances along the president's
+      table at a public banquet about nine o'clock in the evening. The
+      bicycle-face seems unconstrained and merry by comparison with the
+      after-dinner-speech-face. The flow of table-talk is corked by the anxious
+      conception of post-prandial oratory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thackeray, in one of his ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, speaks of "the sin of
+      tall-talking," which, he says, "is the sin of schoolmasters, governesses,
+      critics, sermoners, and instructors of young or old people." But this is
+      not in accord with my observation. I should say it was rather the sin of
+      dilettanti who are ambitious of that high-stepping accomplishment which is
+      called "conversational ability."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This has usually, to my mind, something set and artificial about it,
+      although in its most perfect form the art almost succeeds in concealing
+      itself. But, at all events, ''conversation'' is talk in evening dress,
+      with perhaps a little powder and a touch of rouge. 'T is like one of those
+      wise virgins who are said to look their best by lamplight. And doubtless
+      this is an excellent thing, and not without its advantages. But for my
+      part, commend me to one who loses nothing by the early morning
+      illumination,&mdash;one who brings all her attractions with her when she
+      comes down to breakfast,&mdash;she is a very pleasant maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Talk is that form of human speech which is exempt from all duties, foreign
+      and domestic. It is the nearest thing in the world to thinking and feeling
+      aloud. It is necessarily not for publication,&mdash;solely an evidence of
+      good faith and mutual kindness. You tell me what you have seen and what
+      you are thinking about, because you take it for granted that it will
+      interest and entertain me; and you listen to my replies and the recital of
+      my adventures and opinions, because you know I like to tell them, and
+      because you find something in them, of one kind or another, that you care
+      to hear. It is a nice game, with easy, simple rules, and endless
+      possibilities of variation. And if we go into it with the right spirit,
+      and play it for love, without heavy stakes, the chances are that if we
+      happen to be fairly talkable people we shall have one of the best things
+      in the world,&mdash;a mighty good talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What is there in this anxious, hide-bound, tiresome existence of ours,
+      more restful and remunerative? Montaigne says, "The use of it is more
+      sweet than of any other action of life; and for that reason it is that, if
+      I were compelled to choose, I should sooner, I think, consent to lose my
+      sight than my hearing and speech." The very aimlessness with which it
+      proceeds, the serene disregard of all considerations of profit and
+      propriety with which it follows its wandering course, and brings up
+      anywhere or nowhere, to camp for the night, is one of its attractions. It
+      is like a day's fishing, not valuable chiefly for the fish you bring home,
+      but for the pleasant country through which it leads you, and the state of
+      personal well-being and health in which it leaves you, warmed, and
+      cheered, and content with life and friendship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The order in which you set out upon a talk, the path which you pursue, the
+      rules which you observe or disregard, make but little difference in the
+      end. You may follow the advice of Immanuel Kant if you like, and begin
+      with the weather and the roads, and go on to current events, and wind up
+      with history, art, and philosophy. Or you may reverse the order if you
+      prefer, like that admirable talker Clarence King, who usually set sail on
+      some highly abstract paradox, such as "Civilization is a nervous disease,"
+      and landed in a tale of adventure in Mexico or the Rocky Mountains. Or you
+      may follow the example of Edward Eggleston, who started in at the middle
+      and worked out at either end, and sometimes at both. It makes no
+      difference. If the thing is in you at all, you will find good matter for
+      talk anywhere along the route. Hear what Montaigne says again: "In our
+      discourse all subjects are alike to me; let there be neither weight nor
+      depth, 't is all one; there is yet grace and pertinence; all there is
+      tented with a mature and constant judgment, and mixed with goodness,
+      freedom, gayety, and friendship."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How close to the mark the old essayist sends his arrow! He is right about
+      the essential qualities of good talk. They are not merely intellectual.
+      They are moral. Goodness of heart, freedom of spirit, gayety of temper,
+      and friendliness of disposition,&mdash;these are four fine things, and
+      doubtless as acceptable to God as they are agreeable to men. The
+      talkability which springs out of these qualities has its roots in a good
+      soil. On such a plant one need not look for the poison berries of malign
+      discourse, nor for the Dead Sea apples of frivolous mockery. But fair
+      fruit will be there, pleasant to the sight and good for food, brought
+      forth abundantly according to the season.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III. VARIATIONS&mdash;ON A PLEASANT PHRASE FROM MONTAIGNE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Montaigne has given as our text, "Goodness, freedom, gayety, and
+      friendship,"&mdash;these are the conditions which produce talkability. And
+      on this fourfold theme we may embroider a few variations, by way of
+      exposition and enlargement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GOODNESS is the first thing and the most needful. An ugly, envious,
+      irritable disposition is not fitted for talk. The occasions for offence
+      are too numerous, and the way into strife is too short and easy. A touch
+      of good-natured combativeness, a fondness for brisk argument, a readiness
+      to try a friendly bout with any comer, on any ground, is a decided
+      advantage in a talker. It breaks up the offensive monotony of polite
+      concurrence, and makes things lively. But quarrelsomeness is quite another
+      affair, and very fatal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am always a little uneasy in a discourse with the Reverend Bellicosus
+      Macduff. It is like playing golf on links liable to earthquakes. One never
+      knows when the landscape will be thrown into convulsions. Macduff has a
+      tendency to regard a difference of opinion as a personal insult. If he
+      makes a bad stroke he seems to think that the way to retrieve it is to
+      deliver the next one on the head of the other player. He does not tarry
+      for the invitation to lay on; and before you know what has happened you
+      find yourself in a position where you are obliged to cry, "Hold, enough!"
+      and to be liberally damned without any bargain to that effect. This is
+      discouraging, and calculated to make one wish that human intercourse might
+      be put, as far as Macduff is concerned, upon the gold basis of silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, what a delight it was to talk with that old worthy,
+      Chancellor Howard Crosby. He was a fighting man for four or five
+      generations hack, Dutch on one side, English on the other. But there was
+      not one little drop of gall in his blood. His opinions were fixed to a
+      degree; he loved to do battle for them; he never changed them&mdash;at
+      least never in the course of the same discussion. He admired and respected
+      a gallant adversary, and urged him on, with quips and puns and daring
+      assaults and unqualified statements, to do his best. Easy victories were
+      not to his taste. Even if he joined with you in laying out some common
+      falsehood for burial, you might be sure that before the affair was
+      concluded there would be every prospect of what an Irishman would call "an
+      elegant wake." If you stood up against him on one of his favorite subjects
+      of discussion you must be prepared for hot work. You would have to take
+      off your coat. But when the combat was over he would be the man to help
+      you on with it again; and you would walk home together arm in arm, through
+      the twilight, smoking the pipe of peace. Talk like that does good. It
+      quickens the beating of the heart, and leaves no scars upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this manly spirit, which loves
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "To drink delight of battle with its peers,"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      is a very different thing from that mean, bad, hostile temper which loves
+      to inflict wounds and injuries just for the sake of showing power, and
+      which is never so happy as when it is making some one wince. There are
+      such people in the world, and sometimes their brilliancy tempts us to
+      forget their malignancy. But to have much converse with them is as if we
+      should make playmates of rattlesnakes for their grace of movement and
+      swiftness of stroke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew a man once (I will not name him even with an initial) who was
+      malignant to the core. Learned, industrious, accomplished, he kept all his
+      talents at the service of a perfect genius for hatred. If you crossed his
+      path but once, he would never cease to curse you. The grave might close
+      over you, but he would revile your epitaph and mock at your memory. It was
+      not even necessary that you should do anything to incur his enmity. It was
+      enough to be upright and sincere and successful, to waken the wrath of
+      this Shimei. Integrity was an offence to him, and excellence of any kind
+      filled him with spleen. There was no good cause within his horizon that he
+      did not give a bad word to, and no decent man in the community whom he did
+      not try either to use or to abuse. To listen to him or to read what he had
+      written was to learn to think a little worse of every one that he
+      mentioned, and worst of all of him. He had the air of a gentleman, the
+      vocabulary of a scholar, the style of a Junius, and the heart of a
+      Thersites.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Talk, in such company, is impossible. The sense of something evil, lurking
+      beneath the play of wit, is like the knowledge that there are snakes in
+      the grass. Every step must be taken with fear. But the real pleasure of a
+      walk through the meadow comes from the feeling of security, of ease, of
+      safe and happy abandon to the mood of the moment. This ungirdled and
+      unguarded felicity in mutual discourse depends, after all, upon the
+      assurance of real goodness in your companion. I do not mean a stiff
+      impeccability of conduct. Prudes and Pharisees are poor comrades. I mean
+      simply goodness of heart, the wholesome, generous, kindly quality which
+      thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, hopeth all things, endureth
+      all things, and wisheth well to all men. Where you feel this quality you
+      can let yourself go, in the ease of hearty talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FREEDOM is the second note that Montaigne strikes, and it is essential to
+      the harmony of talking. Very careful, prudent, precise persons are seldom
+      entertaining in familiar speech. They are like tennis players in too fine
+      clothes. They think more of their costume than of the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A mania for absolutely correct pronunciation is fatal. The people who are
+      afflicted with this painful ailment are as anxious about their utterance
+      as dyspeptics about their diet. They move through their sentences as
+      delicately as Agag walked. Their little airs of nicety, their starched
+      cadences and frilled phrases seem as if they had just been taken out of a
+      literary bandbox. If perchance you happen to misplace an accent, you shall
+      see their eyebrows curl up like an interrogation mark, and they will ask
+      you what authority you have for that pronunciation. As if, forsooth, a man
+      could not talk without book-license! As if he must have a permit from some
+      dusty lexicon before he can take a good word into his mouth and speak it
+      out like the people with whom he has lived!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth is that the man who is very particular not to commit himself, in
+      pronunciation or otherwise, and talks as if his remarks were being taken
+      down in shorthand, and shudders at the thought of making a mistake, will
+      hardly be able to open your heart or let out the best that is in his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reserve and precision are a great protection to overrated reputations; but
+      they are death to talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In talk it is not correctness of grammar nor elegance of enunciation that
+      charms us; it is spirit, VERVE, the sudden turn of humour, the keen,
+      pungent taste of life. For this reason a touch of dialect, a flavour of
+      brogue, is delightful. Any dialect is classic that has conveyed beautiful
+      thoughts. Who that ever talked with the poet Tennyson, when he let himself
+      go, over the pipes, would miss the savour of his broad-rolling
+      Lincolnshire vowels, now heightening the humour, now deepening the pathos,
+      of his genuine manly speech? There are many good stories lingering in the
+      memories of those who knew Dr. James McCosh, the late president of
+      Princeton University,&mdash;stories too good, I fear, to get into a
+      biography; but the best of them, in print, would not have the snap and
+      vigour of the poorest of them, in talk, with his own inimitable
+      Scotch-Irish brogue to set it forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A brogue is not a fault. It is a beauty, an heirloom, a distinction. A
+      local accent is like a landed inheritance; it marks a man's place in the
+      world, tells where he comes from. Of course it is possible to have too
+      much of it. A man does not need to carry the soil of his whole farm around
+      with him on his boots. But, within limits, the accent of a native region
+      is delightful. 'T is the flavour of heather in the grouse, the taste of
+      wild herbs and evergreen-buds in the venison. I like the maple-sugar tang
+      of the Vermonter's sharp-edged speech; the round, full-waisted r's of
+      Pennsylvania and Ohio; the soft, indolent vowels of the South. One of the
+      best talkers now living is a schoolmaster from Virginia, Colonel Gordon
+      McCabe. I once crossed the ocean with him on a stream of stories that
+      reached from Liverpool to New York. He did not talk in the least like a
+      book. He talked like a Virginian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Montaigne mentions GAYETY as the third clement of satisfying
+      discourse, I fancy he does not mean mere fun, though that has its value at
+      the right time and place. But there is another quality which is far more
+      valuable and always fit. Indeed it underlies the best fun and makes it
+      wholesome. It is cheerfulness, the temper which makes the best of things
+      and squeezes the little drops of honey even out of thistle-blossoms. I
+      think this is what Montaigne meant. Certainly it is what he had.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cheerfulness is the background of all good talk. A sense of humour is a
+      means of grace. With it I have heard a pleasant soul make even that most
+      perilous of all subjects, the description of a long illness, entertaining.
+      The various physicians moved through the recital as excellent comedians,
+      and the medicines appeared like a succession of timely jests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no occasion upon which this precious element of talkability comes
+      out stronger than when we are on a journey. Travel with a cheerless and
+      easily discouraged companion is an unadulterated misery. But a cheerful
+      comrade is better than a waterproof coat and a foot-warmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I remember riding once with my lady Graygown fifteen miles through a cold
+      rainstorm, in an open buckboard, over the worst road in the world, from
+      LAC A LA BELLE RIVIERE to the Metabetchouan River. Such was the
+      cheerfulness of her ejaculations (the only possible form of talk) that we
+      arrived at our destination as warm and merry as if we had been sitting
+      beside a roaring camp-fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after all, the very best thing in good talk, and the thing that helps
+      it most, is FRIENDSHIP. How it dissolves the barriers that divide us, and
+      loosens all constraint, and diffuses itself like some fine old cordial
+      through all the veins of life&mdash;this feeling that we understand and
+      trust each other, and wish each other heartily well! Everything into which
+      it really comes is good. It transforms letter-writing from a task into a
+      pleasure. It makes music a thousand times more sweet. The people who play
+      and sing not at us, but TO us,&mdash;how delightful it is to listen to
+      them! Yes, there is a talkability that can express itself even without
+      words. There is an exchange of thought and feeling which is happy alike in
+      speech and in silence. It is quietness pervaded with friendship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having come thus far in the exposition of Montaigne, I shall conclude with
+      an opinion of my own, even though I cannot quote a sentence of his to back
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The one person of all the world in whom talkability is most desirable, and
+      talkativeness least endurable, is a wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A WILD STRAWBERRY
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Such is the story of the Boblink; once spiritual, musical,
+     admired, the joy of the meadows, and the favourite bird of
+     spring; finally a gross little sensualist who expiates his
+     sensuality in the larder. His story contains a moral, worthy
+     the attention of all little birds and little boys; warning
+     them to keep to those refined and intellectual pursuits
+     which raised him to so high a pitch of popularity during the
+     early part of his career; but to eschew all tendency to that
+     gross and dissipated indulgence, which brought this mistaken
+     little bird to an untimely end."
+
+     &mdash;WASHINGTON IRVING: Wolfert's Roost.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Swiftwater brook was laughing softly to itself as it ran through a
+      strip of hemlock forest on the edge of the Woodlings' farm. Among the
+      evergreen branches overhead the gayly-dressed warblers,&mdash;little
+      friends of the forest,&mdash;were flitting to and fro, lisping their June
+      songs of contented love: milder, slower, lazier notes than those in which
+      they voiced the amourous raptures of May. Prince's Pine and golden
+      loose-strife and pink laurel and blue hare-bells and purple-fringed
+      orchids, and a score of lovely flowers were all abloom. The late spring
+      had hindered some; the sudden heats of early summer had hastened others;
+      and now they seemed to come out all together, as if Nature had suddenly
+      tilted up her cornucopia and poured forth her treasures in spendthrift
+      joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I lay on a mossy bank at the foot of a tree, filling my pipe after a
+      frugal lunch, and thinking how hard it would be to find in any quarter of
+      the globe a place more fair and fragrant than this hidden vale among the
+      Alleghany Mountains. The perfume of the flowers of the forest is more
+      sweet and subtle than the heavy scent of tropical blossoms. No lily-field
+      in Bermuda could give a fragrance half so magical as the fairy-like odour
+      of these woodland slopes, soft carpeted with the green of glossy vines
+      above whose tiny leaves, in delicate profusion,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "The slight Linnaea hangs its twin-born heads."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Nor are there any birds in Africa, or among the Indian Isles, more
+      exquisite in colour than these miniature warblers, showing their gold and
+      green, their orange and black, their blue and white, against the dark
+      background of the rhododendron thicket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how seldom we put a cup of pleasure to our lips without a dash of
+      bitters, a touch of faultfinding. My drop of discontent, that day, was the
+      thought that the northern woodland, at least in June, yielded no fruit to
+      match its beauty and its fragrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is good browsing among the leaves of the wood and the grasses of the
+      meadow, as every well-instructed angler knows. The bright emerald tips
+      that break from the hemlock and the balsam like verdant flames have a
+      pleasant savour to the tongue. The leaves of the sassafras are full of
+      spice, and the bark of the black-birch twigs holds a fine cordial.
+      Crinkle-root is spicy, but you must partake of it delicately, or it will
+      bite your tongue. Spearmint and peppermint never lose their charm for the
+      palate that still remembers the delights of youth. Wild sorrel has an
+      agreeable, sour, shivery flavour. Even the tender stalk of a young blade
+      of grass is a thing that can be chewed by a person of childlike mind with
+      much contentment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, after all, these are only relishes. They whet the appetite more than
+      they appease it. There should be something to eat, in the June woods, as
+      perfect in its kind, as satisfying to the sense of taste, as the birds and
+      the flowers are to the senses of sight and hearing and smell. Blueberries
+      are good, but they are far away in July. Blackberries are luscious when
+      they are fully ripe, but that will not be until August. Then the fishing
+      will be over, and the angler's hour of need will be past. The one thing
+      that is lacking now beside this mountain stream is some fruit more
+      luscious and dainty than grows in the tropics, to melt upon the lips and
+      fill the mouth with pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that is what these cold northern woods will not offer. They are too
+      reserved, too lofty, too puritanical to make provision for the grosser
+      wants of humanity. They are not friendly to luxury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then, as I shifted my head to find a softer pillow of moss after this
+      philosophic and immoral reflection, Nature gave me her silent answer.
+      Three wild strawberries, nodding on their long stems, hung over my face.
+      It was an invitation to taste and see that they were good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The berries were not the round and rosy ones of the meadow, but the long,
+      slender, dark crimson ones of the forest. One, two, three; no more on that
+      vine; but each one as it touched my lips was a drop of nectar and a crumb
+      of ambrosia, a concentrated essence of all the pungent sweetness of the
+      wildwood, sapid, penetrating, and delicious. I tasted the odour of a
+      hundred blossoms and the green shimmering of innumerable leaves and the
+      sparkle of sifted sunbeams and the breath of highland breezes and the song
+      of many birds and the murmur of flowing streams,&mdash;all in a wild
+      strawberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do you remember, in THE COMPLEAT ANGLER, a remark which Isaak Walton
+      quotes from a certain "Doctor Boteler" about strawberries? "Doubtless,"
+      said that wise old man, "God could have made a better berry, but doubtless
+      God never did."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, the wild strawberry is the one that God made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think it would have been pleasant to know a man who could sum up his
+      reflections upon the important question of berries in such a pithy saying
+      as that which Walton repeats. His tongue must have been in close
+      communication with his heart. He must have had a fair sense of that
+      sprightly humour without which piety itself is often insipid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have often tried to find out more about him, and some day I hope I
+      shall. But up to the present, all that the books have told me of this
+      obscure sage is that his name was William Butler, and that he was an
+      eminent physician, sometimes called "the Aesculapius of his age." He was
+      born at Ipswich, in 1535, and educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge; in the
+      neighbourhood of which town he appears to have spent the most of his life,
+      in high repute as a practitioner of physic. He had the honour of doctoring
+      King James the First after an accident on the hunting field, and must have
+      proved himself a pleasant old fellow, for the king looked him up at
+      Cambridge the next year, and spent an hour in his lodgings. This wise
+      physician also invented a medicinal beverage called "Doctor Butler's Ale."
+      I do not quite like the sound of it, but perhaps it was better than its
+      name. This much is sure, at all events: either it was really a harmless
+      drink, or else the doctor must have confined its use entirely to his
+      patients; for he lived to the ripe age of eighty-three years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between the time when William Butler first needed the services of a
+      physician, in 1535, and the time when he last prescribed for a patient, in
+      1618, there was plenty of trouble in England. Bloody Queen Mary sat on the
+      throne; and there were all kinds of quarrels about religion and politics;
+      and Catholics and Protestants were killing one another in the name of God.
+      After that the red-haired Elizabeth, called the Virgin Queen, wore the
+      crown, and waged triumphant war and tempestuous love. Then fat James of
+      Scotland was made king of Great Britain; and Guy Fawkes tried to blow him
+      up with gunpowder, and failed; and the king tried to blow out all the
+      pipes in England with his COUNTERBLAST AGAINST TOBACCO; but he failed too.
+      Somewhere about that time, early in the seventeenth century, a very small
+      event happened. A new berry was brought over from Virginia,&mdash;FRAGRARIA
+      VIRGINIANA,&mdash;and then, amid wars and rumours of wars, Doctor Butler's
+      happiness was secure. That new berry was so much richer and sweeter and
+      more generous than the familiar FRAGRARIA VESCA of Europe, that it
+      attracted the sincere interest of all persons of good taste. It
+      inaugurated a new era in the history of the strawberry. The long lost
+      masterpiece of Paradise was restored to its true place in the affections
+      of man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Is there not a touch of merry contempt for all the vain controversies and
+      conflicts of humanity in the grateful ejaculation with which the old
+      doctor greeted that peaceful, comforting gift of Providence?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "From this time forward," he seems to say, "the fates cannot beggar me,
+      for I have eaten strawberries. With every Maytime that visits this
+      distracted island, the white blossoms with hearts of gold will arrive. In
+      every June the red drops of pleasant savour will hang among the scalloped
+      leaves. The children of this world may wrangle and give one another wounds
+      that even my good ale cannot cure. Nevertheless, the earth as God created
+      it is a fair dwelling and full of comfort for all who have a quiet mind
+      and a thankful heart. Doubtless God might have made a better world, but
+      doubtless this is the world He made for us; and in it He planted the
+      strawberry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fine old doctor! Brave philosopher of cheerfulness! The Virginian berry
+      should have been brought to England sooner, or you should have lived
+      longer, at least to a hundred years, so that you might have welcomed a
+      score of strawberry-seasons with gratitude and an epigram.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since that time a great change has passed over the fruit which Doctor
+      Butler praised so well. That product of creative art which Divine wisdom
+      did not choose to surpass, human industry has laboured to improve. It has
+      grown immensely in size and substance. The traveller from America who
+      steams into Queenstown harbour in early summer is presented (for a
+      consideration) with a cabbage-leaf full of pale-hued berries, sweet and
+      juicy, any one of which would outbulk a dozen of those that used to grow
+      in Virginia when Pocahontas was smitten with the charms of Captain John
+      Smith. They are superb, those light-tinted Irish strawberries. And there
+      are wonderful new varieties developed in the gardens of New Jersey and
+      Rhode Island, which compare with the ancient berries of the woods and
+      meadows as Leviathan with a minnow. The huge crimson cushions hang among
+      the plants so thick that they seem like bunches of fruit with a few leaves
+      attached for ornament. You can satisfy your hunger in such a berry-patch
+      in ten minutes, while out in the field you must pick for half an hour, and
+      in the forest thrice as long, before you can fill a small tin cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, after all, it is questionable whether men have really bettered God's
+      CHEF D'OEUVRE in the berry line. They have enlarged it and made it more
+      plentiful and more certain in its harvest. But sweeter, more fragrant,
+      more poignant in its flavour? No. The wild berry still stands first in its
+      subtle gusto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Size is not the measure of excellence. Perfection lies in quality, not in
+      quantity. Concentration enhances pleasure, gives it a point so that it
+      goes deeper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Is not a ten-inch trout better than a ten-foot sturgeon? I would rather
+      read a tiny essay by Charles Lamb than a five-hundred page libel on life
+      by a modern British novelist who shall be nameless. Flavour is the
+      priceless quality. Style is the thing that counts and is remembered, in
+      literature, in art, and in berries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No JOCUNDA, nor TRIUMPH, nor VICTORIA, nor any other high-titled fruit
+      that ever took the first prize at an agricultural fair, is half so
+      delicate and satisfying as the wild strawberry that dropped into my mouth,
+      under the hemlock tree, beside the Swiftwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A touch of surprise is essential to perfect sweetness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To get what you have been wishing for is pleasant; but to get what you
+      have not been sure of, makes the pleasure tingle. A new door of happiness
+      is opened when you go out to hunt for something and discover it with your
+      own eyes. But there is an experience even better than that. When you have
+      stupidly forgotten (or despondently forgone) to look about you for the
+      unclaimed treasures and unearned blessings which are scattered along the
+      by-ways of life, then, sometimes by a special mercy, a small sample of
+      them is quietly laid before you so that you cannot help seeing it, and it
+      brings you back to a sense of the joyful possibilities of living.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How full of enjoyment is the search after wild things,&mdash;wild birds,
+      wild flowers, wild honey, wild berries! There was a country club on Storm
+      King Mountain, above the Hudson River, where they used to celebrate a
+      festival of flowers every spring. Men and women who had conservatories of
+      their own, full of rare plants and costly orchids, came together to admire
+      the gathered blossoms of the woodlands and meadows. But the people who had
+      the best of the entertainment were the boys and girls who wandered through
+      the thickets and down the brooks, pushed their way into the tangled copses
+      and crept venturesomely across the swamps, to look for the flowers. Some
+      of the seekers may have had a few gray hairs; but for that day at least
+      they were all boys and girls. Nature was as young as ever, and they were
+      all her children. Hand touched hand without a glove. The hidden blossoms
+      of friendship unfolded. Laughter and merry shouts and snatches of
+      half-forgotten song rose to the lips. Gay adventure sparkled in the air.
+      School was out and nobody listened for the bell. It was just a day to
+      live, and be natural, and take no thought for the morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is great luck in this affair of looking for flowers. I do not see
+      how any one who is prejudiced against games of chance can consistently
+      undertake it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my own part, I approve of garden flowers because they are so orderly
+      and so certain; but wild flowers I love, just because there is so much
+      chance about them. Nature is all in favour of certainty in great laws and
+      of uncertainty in small events. You cannot appoint the day and the place
+      for her flower-shows. If you happen to drop in at the right moment she
+      will give you a free admission. But even then it seems as if the table of
+      beauty had been spread for the joy of a higher visitor, and in obedience
+      to secret orders which you have not heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Have you ever found the fringed gentian?
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          "Just before the snows,
+     There came a purple creature
+      That lavished all the hill:
+     And summer hid her forehead,
+      And mockery was still.
+
+     The frosts were her condition:
+      The Tyrian would not come
+     Until the North evoked her,&mdash;
+      'Creator, shall I bloom?'"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There are strange freaks of fortune in the finding of wild flowers, and
+      curious coincidences which make us feel as if some one were playing
+      friendly tricks on us. I remember reading, one evening in May, a passage
+      in a good book called THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS, in which Colonel
+      Higginson describes the singular luck that a friend of his enjoyed, year
+      after year, in finding the rare blossoms of the double rueanemone. It
+      seems that this man needed only to take a walk in the suburbs of any town,
+      and he would come upon a bed of these flowers, without effort or design. I
+      envied him his good fortune, for I had never discovered even one of them.
+      But the next morning, as I strolled out to fish the Swiftwater, down below
+      Billy Lerns's spring-house I found a green bank in the shadow of the wood
+      all bespangled with tiny, trembling, twofold stars,&mdash;double
+      rueanemones, for luck! It was a favourable omen, and that day I came home
+      with a creel full of trout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The theory that Adam lived out in the woods for some time before he was
+      put into the garden of Eden "to dress it and to keep it" has an air of
+      probability. How else shall we account for the arboreal instincts that
+      cling to his posterity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a wilding strain in our blood that all the civilization in the
+      world will not eradicate. I never knew a real boy&mdash;or, for that
+      matter, a girl worth knowing&mdash;who would not rather climb a tree, any
+      day, than walk up a golden stairway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a touch of this instinct, I suppose, that makes it more delightful
+      to fish in the most insignificant of free streams than in a carefully
+      stocked and preserved pond, where the fish are brought up by hand and fed
+      on minced liver. Such elaborate precautions to ensure good luck extract
+      all the spice from the sport of angling. Casting the fly in such a pond,
+      if you hooked a fish, you might expect to hear the keeper say, "Ah, that
+      is Charles, we will play him and put him back, if you please, sir; for the
+      master is very fond of him,"&mdash;or, "Now you have got hold of Edward;
+      let us land him and keep him; he is three years old this month, and just
+      ready to be eaten." It would seem like taking trout out of cold storage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who could find any pleasure in angling for the tame carp in the fish-pool
+      of Fontainebleau? They gather at the marble steps, those venerable,
+      courtly fish, to receive their rations; and there are veterans among them,
+      in ancient livery, with fringes of green moss on their shoulders, who
+      could tell you pretty tales of being fed by the white hands of maids of
+      honour, or even of nibbling their crumbs of bread from the jewelled
+      fingers of a princess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no sport in bringing pets to the table. It may be necessary
+      sometimes; but the true sportsman would always prefer to leave the
+      unpleasant task of execution to menial hands, while he goes out into the
+      wild country to capture his game by his own skill,&mdash;if he has good
+      luck. I would rather run some risk in this enterprise (even as the young
+      Tobias did, when the voracious pike sprang at him from the waters of the
+      Tigris, and would have devoured him but for the friendly instruction of
+      the piscatory Angel, who taught Tobias how to land the monster),&mdash;I
+      would far rather take any number of chances in my sport than have it
+      domesticated to the point of dulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trim plantations of trees which are called "forests" in certain parts
+      of Europe&mdash;scientifically pruned and tended, counted every year by
+      uniformed foresters, and defended against all possible depredations&mdash;are
+      admirable and useful in their way; but they lack the mystic enchantment of
+      the fragments of native woodland which linger among the Adirondacks and
+      the White Mountains, or the vast, shaggy, sylvan wildernesses which hide
+      the lakes and rivers of Canada. These Laurentian Hills lie in No Man's
+      Land. Here you do not need to keep to the path, for there is none. You may
+      make your own trail, whithersoever fancy leads you; and at night you may
+      pitch your tent under any tree that looks friendly and firm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, if anywhere, you shall find Dryads, and Naiads, and Oreads. And if
+      you chance to see one, by moonlight, combing her long hair beside the
+      glimmering waterfall, or slipping silently, with gleaming shoulders,
+      through the grove of silver birches, you may call her by the name that
+      pleases you best. She is all your own discovery. There is no social
+      directory in the wilderness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One side of our nature, no doubt, finds its satisfaction in the regular,
+      the proper, the conventional. But there is another side of our nature,
+      underneath, that takes delight in the strange, the free, the spontaneous.
+      We like to discover what we call a law of Nature, and make our
+      calculations about it, and harness the force which lies behind it for our
+      own purposes. But we taste a different kind of joy when an event occurs
+      which nobody has foreseen or counted upon. It seems like an evidence that
+      there is something in the world which is alive and mysterious and
+      untrammelled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weather-prophet tells us of an approaching storm. It comes according
+      to the programme. We admire the accuracy of the prediction, and
+      congratulate ourselves that we have such a good meteorological service.
+      But when, perchance, a bright, crystalline piece of weather arrives
+      instead of the foretold tempest, do we not feel a secret sense of pleasure
+      which goes beyond our mere comfort in the sunshine? The whole affair is
+      not as easy as a sum in simple addition, after all,&mdash;at least not
+      with our present knowledge. It is a good joke on the Weather Bureau. "Aha,
+      Old Probabilities!" we say, "you don't know it all yet; there are still
+      some chances to be taken!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some day, I suppose, all things in the heavens above, and in the earth
+      beneath, and in the hearts of the men and women who dwell between, will be
+      investigated and explained. We shall live a perfectly ordered life, with
+      no accidents, happy or unhappy. Everybody will act according to rule, and
+      there will be no dotted lines on the map of human existence, no regions
+      marked "unexplored." Perhaps that golden age of the machine will come, but
+      you and I will hardly live to see it. And if that seems to you a matter
+      for tears, you must do your own weeping, for I cannot find it in my heart
+      to add a single drop of regret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The results of education and social discipline in humanity are fine. It is
+      a good thing that we can count upon them. But at the same time let us
+      rejoice in the play of native traits and individual vagaries. Cultivated
+      manners are admirable, yet there is a sudden touch of inborn grace and
+      courtesy that goes beyond them all. No array of accomplishments can rival
+      the charm of an unsuspected gift of nature, brought suddenly to light. I
+      once heard a peasant girl singing down the Traunthal, and the echo of her
+      song outlives, in the hearing of my heart, all memories of the grand
+      opera.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The harvest of the gardens and the orchards, the result of prudent
+      planting and patient cultivation, is full of satisfaction. We anticipate
+      it in due season, and when it comes we fill our mouths and are grateful.
+      But pray, kind Providence, let me slip over the fence out of the garden
+      now and then, to shake a nut-tree that grows untended in the wood. Give me
+      liberty to put off my black coat for a day, and go a-fishing on a free
+      stream, and find by chance a wild strawberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LOVERS AND LANDSCAPE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "He insisted that the love that was of real value in the world was n't
+      interesting, and that the love that was interesting was n't always
+      admirable. Love that happened to a person like the measles or fits, and
+      was really of no particular credit to itself or its victims, was the sort
+      that got into the books and was made much of; whereas the kind that was
+      attained by the endeavour of true souls, and that had wear in it, and that
+      made things go right instead of tangling them up, was too much like duty
+      to make satisfactory reading for people of sentiment."&mdash;E. S. MARTIN:
+      My Cousin Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.
+      The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first day of spring is due to arrive, if the calendar does not break
+      down, about the twenty-first of March, when the earth turns the corner of
+      Sun Alley and starts for Summer Street. But the first spring day is not on
+      the time-table at all. It comes when it is ready, and in the latitude of
+      New York this is usually not till after All Fools' Day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About this time,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "When chinks in April's windy dome
+      Let through a day of June,
+      And foot and thought incline to roam,
+      And every sound's a tune,"&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      it is the habit of the angler who lives in town to prepare for the labours
+      of the approaching season by longer walks or bicycle-rides in the parks,
+      or along the riverside, or in the somewhat demoralized Edens of the
+      suburbs. In the course of these vernal peregrinations and circumrotations,
+      I observe that lovers of various kinds begin to occupy a notable place in
+      the landscape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The burnished dove puts a livelier iris around his neck, and practises
+      fantastic bows and amourous quicksteps along the verandah of the
+      pigeon-house and on every convenient roof. The young male of the human
+      species, less gifted in the matter of rainbows, does his best with a gay
+      cravat, and turns the thoughts which circulate above it towards the
+      securing or propitiating of a best girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The objects of these more or less brilliant attentions, doves and girls,
+      show a becoming reciprocity, and act in a way which leads us to infer (so
+      far as inferences hold good in the mysterious region of female conduct)
+      that they are not seriously displeased. To a rightly tempered mind,
+      pleasure is a pleasant sight. And the philosophic observer who could look
+      upon this spring spectacle of the lovers with any but friendly feelings
+      would be indeed what the great Dr. Samuel Johnson called "a person not to
+      be envied."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far be it from me to fall into such a desiccated and supercilious mood. My
+      small olive-branch of fancy will be withered, in truth, and ready to drop
+      budless from the tree, when I cease to feel a mild delight in the billings
+      and cooings of the little birds that separate from the flocks to fly
+      together in pairs, or in the uninstructive but mutually satisfactory
+      converse which Strephon holds with Chloe while they dally along the
+      primrose path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am glad that even the stony and tumultuous city affords some
+      opportunities for these amiable observations. In the month of April there
+      is hardly a clump of shrubbery in the Central Park which will not serve as
+      a trysting-place for yellow warblers and catbirds just home from their
+      southern tours. At the same time, you shall see many a bench, designed for
+      the accommodation of six persons, occupied at the sunset hour by only two,
+      and apparently so much too small for them that they cannot avoid a little
+      crowding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These are infallible signs. Taken in conjunction with the eruption of tops
+      and marbles among the small boys, and the purchase of fishing-tackle and
+      golf-clubs by the old boys, they certify us that the vernal equinox has
+      arrived, not only in the celestial regions, but also in the heart of man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have been reflecting of late upon the relation of lovers to the
+      landscape, and questioning whether art has given it quite the same place
+      as that which belongs to it in nature. In fiction, for example, and in the
+      drama, and in music, I have some vague misgivings that romantic love has
+      come to hold a more prominent and a more permanent position than it fills
+      in real life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is dangerous ground to venture upon, even in the most modest and
+      deprecatory way. The man who expresses an opinion, or even a doubt, on
+      this subject, contrary to the ruling traditions, will have a swarm of
+      angry critics buzzing about him. He will be called a heretic, a heathen, a
+      cold-blooded freak of nature. As for the woman who hesitates to subscribe
+      all the thirty-nine articles of romantic love, if such a one dares to put
+      her reluctance into words, she is certain to be accused either of
+      unwomanly ambition or of feminine disappointment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us make haste, then, to get back for safety to the ornithological
+      aspect of the subject. Here there can be no penalties for heresy. And here
+      I make bold to avow my conviction that the pairing season is not the only
+      point of interest in the life of the birds; nor is the instinct by which
+      they mate altogether and beyond comparison the noblest passion that stirs
+      their feathered breasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'T is true, the time of mating is their prettiest season; but it is very
+      short. How little we should know of the drama of their airy life if we had
+      eyes only for this brief scene! Their finest qualities come out in the
+      patient cares that protect the young in the nest, in the varied struggles
+      for existence through the changing year, and in the incredible heroisms of
+      the annual migrations. Herein is a parable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be observed further, without fear of rebuke, that the behaviour of
+      the different kinds of birds during the prevalence of romantic love is not
+      always equally above reproach. The courtship of English sparrows&mdash;blustering,
+      noisy, vulgar&mdash;is a sight to offend the taste of every gentle
+      on-looker. Some birds reiterate and vociferate their love-songs in a
+      fashion that displays their inconsiderateness as well as their ignorance
+      of music. This trait is most marked in domestic fowls. There was a
+      guinea-cock, once, that chose to do his wooing close under the window of a
+      farm-house where I was lodged. He had no regard for my hours of sleep or
+      meditation. His amatory click-clack prevented the morning and wrecked the
+      tranquillity of the evening. It was odious, brutal,&mdash;worse, it was
+      absolutely thoughtless. Herein is another parable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us admit cheerfully that lovers have a place in the landscape and lend
+      a charm to it. This does not mean that they are to take up all the room
+      there is. Suppose, for example, that a pair of them, on Goat Island, put
+      themselves in such a position as to completely block out your view of
+      Niagara. You cannot regard them with gratitude. They even become a little
+      tedious. Or suppose that you are visiting at a country-house, and you find
+      that you must not enjoy the moonlight on the verandah because Augustus and
+      Amanda are murmuring in one corner, and that you must not go into the
+      garden because Louis and Lizzie are there, and that you cannot have a sail
+      on the lake because Richard and Rebecca have taken the boat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course, unless you happen to be a selfish old curmudgeon, you rejoice,
+      by sympathy, in the happiness of these estimable young people. But you
+      fail to see why it should cover so much ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why should they not pool their interests, and all go out in the boat, or
+      all walk in the garden, or all sit on the verandah? Then there would be
+      room for somebody else about the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In old times you could rely upon lovers for retirement. But nowadays their
+      role seems to be a bold ostentation of their condition. They rely upon
+      other people to do the timid, shrinking part. Society, in America, is
+      arranged principally for their convenience; and whatever portion of the
+      landscape strikes their fancy, they preempt and occupy. All this goes upon
+      the presumption that romantic love is really the only important interest
+      in life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This train of thought was illuminated, the other night, by an incident
+      which befell me at a party. It was an assembly of men, drawn together by
+      their common devotion to the sport of canoeing. There were only three or
+      four of the gentler sex present (as honorary members), and only one of
+      whom it could be suspected that she was at that time a victim or an object
+      of the tender passion. In the course of the evening, by way of diversion
+      to our disputations on keels and centreboards, canvas and birch-bark,
+      cedar-wood and bass-wood, paddles and steering-gear, a fine young Apollo,
+      with a big, manly voice, sang us a few songs. But he did not chant the
+      joys of weathering a sudden squall, or running a rapid feather-white with
+      foam, or floating down a long, quiet, elm-bowered river. Not all. His
+      songs were full of sighs and yearnings, languid lips and sheep's-eyes. His
+      powerful voice informed us that crowns of thorns seemed like garlands of
+      roses, and kisses were as sweet as samples of heaven, and various other
+      curious sensations were experienced; and at the end of every stanza the
+      reason was stated, in tones of thunder&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Because I love you, dear."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Even if true, it seemed inappropriate. How foolish the average audience in
+      a drawing-room looks while it is listening to passionate love-ditties! And
+      yet I suppose the singer chose these songs, not from any malice
+      aforethought, but simply because songs of this kind are so abundant that
+      it is next to impossible to find anything else in the shops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In regard to novels, the situation is almost as discouraging. Ten
+      love-stories are printed to one of any other kind. We have a standing
+      invitation to consider the tribulations and difficulties of some young man
+      or young woman in finding a mate. It must be admitted that the subject has
+      its capabilities of interest. Nature has her uses for the lover, and she
+      gives him an excellent part to play in the drama of life. But is this
+      tantamount to saying that his interest is perennial and all-absorbing, and
+      that his role on the stage is the only one that is significant and
+      noteworthy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Life is much too large to be expressed in the terms of a single passion.
+      Friendship, patriotism, parental tenderness, filial devotion, the ardour
+      of adventure, the thirst for knowledge, the ecstasy of religion,&mdash;these
+      all have their dwelling in the heart of man. They mould character. They
+      control conduct. They are stars of destiny shining in the inner firmament.
+      And if art would truly hold the mirror up to nature, it must reflect these
+      greater and lesser lights that rule the day and the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How many of the plays that divert and misinform the modern theatre-goer
+      turn on the pivot of a love-affair, not always pure, but generally simple!
+      And how many of those that are imported from France proceed upon the
+      theory that the Seventh is the only Commandment, and that the principal
+      attraction of life lies in the opportunity of breaking it! The
+      matinee-girl is not likely to have a very luminous or truthful idea of
+      existence floating around in her pretty little head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, after all, the great plays, those that take the deepest hold upon the
+      heart, like HAMLET and KING LEAR, MACBETH and OTHELLO, are not love-plays.
+      And the most charming comedies, like THE WINTER'S TALE, and THE RIVALS,
+      and RIP VAN WINKLE, are chiefly memorable for other things than
+      love-scenes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even in novels, love shows at its best when it does not absorb the whole
+      plot. LORNA DOONE is a lovers' story, but there is a blessed minimum of
+      spooning in it, and always enough of working and fighting to keep the air
+      clear and fresh. THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, and HYPATIA, and ROMOLA, and THE
+      CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH, and JOHN INGLESANT, and THE THREE MUSKETEERS, and
+      NOTRE DAME, and PEACE AND WAR, and QUO VADIS,&mdash;these are great novels
+      because they are much more than tales of romantic love. As for HENRY
+      ESMOND, (which seems to me the best of all,) certainly "love at first
+      sight" does not play the finest role in that book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are good stories of our own day&mdash;pathetic, humourous,
+      entertaining, powerful&mdash;in which the element of romantic love is
+      altogether subordinate, or even imperceptible. THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM
+      does not owe its deep interest to the engagement of the very charming
+      young people who enliven it. MADAME DELPHINE and OLE 'STRACTED are perfect
+      stories of their kind. I would not barter THE JUNGLE BOOKS for a hundred
+      of THE BRUSHWOOD BOY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth is that love, considered merely as the preference of one person
+      for another of the opposite sex, is not "the greatest thing in the world."
+      It becomes great only when it leads on, as it often does, to heroism and
+      self-sacrifice and fidelity. Its chief value for art (the interpreter)
+      lies not in itself, but in its quickening relation to the other elements
+      of life. It must be seen and shown in its due proportion, and in harmony
+      with the broader landscape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do you believe that in all the world there is only one woman specially
+      created for each man, and that the order of the universe will be
+      hopelessly askew unless these two needles find each other in the haystack?
+      You believe it for yourself, perhaps; but do you believe it for Tom
+      Johnson? You remember what a terrific disturbance he made in the summer of
+      189-, at Bar Harbor, about Ellinor Brown, and how he ran away with her in
+      September. You have also seen them together (occasionally) at Lenox and
+      Newport, since their marriage. Are you honestly of the opinion that if Tom
+      had not married Ellinor, these two young lives would have been a total
+      wreck?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam Smith, in his book on THE MORAL SENTIMENTS, goes so far as to say
+      that "love is not interesting to the observer because it is AN AFFECTION
+      OF THE IMAGINATION, into which it is difficult for a third party to
+      enter." Something of the same kind occurred to me in regard to Tom and
+      Ellinor. Yet I would not have presumed to suggest this thought to either
+      of them. Nor would I have quoted in their hearing the melancholy and
+      frigid prediction of Ralph Waldo Emerson, to the effect that they would
+      some day discover "that all which at first drew them together&mdash;those
+      once sacred features, that magical play of charm&mdash;was deciduous."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DECIDUOUS, indeed? Cold, unpleasant, botanical word! Rather would I
+      prognosticate for the lovers something perennial,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "A sober certainty of waking bliss,"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      to survive the evanescence of love's young dream. Ellinor should turn out
+      to be a woman like the Lady Elizabeth Hastings, of whom Richard Steele
+      wrote that "to love her was a liberal education." Tom should prove that he
+      had in him the lasting stuff of a true man and a hero. Then it would make
+      little difference whether their conjunction had been eternally prescribed
+      in the book of fate or not. It would be evidently a fit match, made on
+      earth and illustrative of heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even in the making of such a match as this, the various stages of
+      attraction, infatuation, and appropriation should not be displayed too
+      prominently before the world, nor treated as events of overwhelming
+      importance and enduring moment. I would not counsel Tom and Ellinor, in
+      the midsummer of their engagement, to have their photographs taken
+      together in affectionate attitudes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pictures of an imaginary kind which deal with the subject of romantic
+      love are, almost without exception, fatuous and futile. The inanely
+      amatory, with their languishing eyes, weary us. The endlessly osculatory,
+      with their protracted salutations, are sickening. Even when an air of
+      sentimental propriety is thrown about them by some such title as "Wedded"
+      or "The Honeymoon," they fatigue us. For the most part, they remind me of
+      the remark which the Commodore made upon a certain painting of Jupiter and
+      lo which hangs in the writing-room of the Contrary Club.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir," said that gently piercing critic, "that picture is equally
+      unsatisfactory to the artist, to the moralist, and to the voluptuary."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, having made a clean breast of my misgivings and reservations
+      on the subject of lovers and landscape, I will now confess that the whole
+      of my doubts do not weigh much against my unreasoned faith in romantic
+      love. At heart I am no infidel, but a most obstinate believer and devotee.
+      My seasons of skepticism are transient. They are connected with a torpid
+      liver and aggravated by confinement to a sedentary life and enforced
+      abstinence from angling. Out-of-doors, I return to a saner and happier
+      frame of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As my wheel rolls along the Riverside Drive in the golden glow of the
+      sunset, I rejoice that the episode of Charles Henry and Matilda Jane has
+      not been omitted from the view. This vast and populous city, with all its
+      passing show of life, would be little better than a waste, howling
+      wilderness if we could not catch a glimpse, now and then, of young people
+      falling in love in the good old-fashioned way. Even on a trout-stream, I
+      have seen nothing prettier than the sight upon which I once came suddenly
+      as I was fishing down the Neversink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A boy was kneeling beside the brook, and a girl was giving him a drink of
+      water out of her rosy hands. They stared with wonder and compassion at the
+      wet and solitary angler, wading down the stream, as if he were some kind
+      of a mild lunatic. But as I glanced discreetly at their small tableau, I
+      was not unconscious of the new joy that came into the landscape with the
+      presence of
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "A lover and his lass."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I knew how sweet the water tasted from that kind of a cup. I also have
+      lived in Arcadia, and have not forgotten the way back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A FATAL SUCCESS
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "What surprises me in her behaviour," said he, "is its
+     thoroughness. Woman seldom does things by halves, but often
+     by doubles."
+
+     &mdash;SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ: The Life of Adam.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Beekman De Peyster was probably the most passionate and triumphant
+      fisherman in the Petrine Club. He angled with the same dash and confidence
+      that he threw into his operations in the stock-market. He was sure to be
+      the first man to get his flies on the water at the opening of the season.
+      And when we came together for our fall meeting, to compare notes of our
+      wanderings on various streams and make up the fish-stories for the year,
+      Beekman was almost always "high hook." We expected, as a matter of course,
+      to hear that he had taken the most and the largest fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was so with everything that he undertook. He was a masterful man. If
+      there was an unusually large trout in a river, Beekman knew about it
+      before any one else, and got there first, and came home with the fish. It
+      did not make him unduly proud, because there was nothing uncommon about
+      it. It was his habit to succeed, and all the rest of us were hardened to
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he married Cornelia Cochrane, we were consoled for our partial loss
+      by the apparent fitness and brilliancy of the match. If Beekman was a
+      masterful man, Cornelia was certainly what you might call a mistressful
+      woman. She had been the head of her house since she was eighteen years
+      old. She carried her good looks like the family plate; and when she came
+      into the breakfast-room and said good-morning, it was with an air as if
+      she presented every one with a check for a thousand dollars. Her tastes
+      were accepted as judgments, and her preferences had the force of laws.
+      Wherever she wanted to go in the summer-time, there the finger of
+      household destiny pointed. At Newport, at Bar Harbour, at Lenox, at
+      Southampton, she made a record. When she was joined in holy wedlock to
+      Beekman De Peyster, her father and mother heaved a sigh of satisfaction,
+      and settled down for a quiet vacation in Cherry Valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in the second summer after the wedding that Beekman admitted to a
+      few of his ancient Petrine cronies, in moments of confidence
+      (unjustifiable, but natural), that his wife had one fault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is not exactly a fault," he said, "not a positive fault, you know. It
+      is just a kind of a defect, due to her education, of course. In everything
+      else she's magnificent. But she does n't care for fishing. She says it's
+      stupid,&mdash;can't see why any one should like the woods,&mdash;calls
+      camping out the lunatic's diversion. It's rather awkward for a man with my
+      habits to have his wife take such a view. But it can be changed by
+      training. I intend to educate her and convert her. I shall make an angler
+      of her yet."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so he did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The new education was begun in the Adirondacks, and the first lesson was
+      given at Paul Smith's. It was a complete failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beekman persuaded her to come out with him for a day on Meacham River, and
+      promised to convince her of the charm of angling. She wore a new gown,
+      fawn-colour and violet, with a picture-hat, very taking. But the Meacham
+      River trout was shy that day; not even Beekman could induce him to rise to
+      the fly. What the trout lacked in confidence the mosquitoes more than made
+      up. Mrs. De Peyster came home much sunburned, and expressed a highly
+      unfavourable opinion of fishing as an amusement and of Meacham River as a
+      resort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The nice people don't come to the Adirondacks to fish," said she; "they
+      come to talk about the fishing twenty years ago. Besides, what do you want
+      to catch that trout for? If you do, the other men will say you bought it,
+      and the hotel will have to put in a new one for the rest of the season."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following year Beekman tried Moosehead Lake. Here he found an
+      atmosphere more favourable to his plan of education. There were a good
+      many people who really fished, and short expeditions in the woods were
+      quite fashionable. Cornelia had a camping-costume of the most approved
+      style made by Dewlap on Fifth Avenue,&mdash;pearl-gray with linings of
+      rose-silk,&mdash;and consented to go with her husband on a trip up Moose
+      River. They pitched their tent the first evening at the mouth of Misery
+      Stream, and a storm came on. The rain sifted through the canvas in a fine
+      spray, and Mrs. De Peyster sat up all night in a waterproof cloak, holding
+      an umbrella. The next day they were back at the hotel in time for lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was horrid," she told her most intimate friend, "perfectly horrid. The
+      idea of sleeping in a shower-bath, and eating your breakfast from a tin
+      plate, just for sake of catching a few silly fish! Why not send your
+      guides out to get them for you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, in spite of this profession of obstinate heresy, Beekman observed
+      with secret joy that there were signs, before the end of the season, that
+      Cornelia was drifting a little, a very little but still perceptibly, in
+      the direction of a change of heart. She began to take an interest, as the
+      big trout came along in September, in the reports of the catches made by
+      the different anglers. She would saunter out with the other people to the
+      corner of the porch to see the fish weighed and spread out on the grass.
+      Several times she went with Beekman in the canoe to Hardscrabble Point,
+      and showed distinct evidences of pleasure when he caught large trout. The
+      last day of the season, when he returned from a successful expedition to
+      Roach River and Lily Bay, she inquired with some particularity about the
+      results of his sport; and in the evening, as the company sat before the
+      great open fire in the hall of the hotel, she was heard to use this
+      information with considerable skill in putting down Mrs. Minot Peabody of
+      Boston, who was recounting the details of her husband's catch at Spencer
+      Pond. Cornelia was not a person to be contented with the back seat, even
+      in fish-stories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Beekman observed these indications he was much encouraged, and
+      resolved to push his educational experiment briskly forward to his
+      customary goal of success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Some things can be done, as well as others," he said in his masterful
+      way, as three of us were walking home together after the autumnal dinner
+      of the Petrine Club, which he always attended as a graduate member. "A
+      real fisherman never gives up. I told you I'd make an angler out of my
+      wife; and so I will. It has been rather difficult. She is 'dour' in
+      rising. But she's beginning to take notice of the fly now. Give me another
+      season, and I'll have her landed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Good old Beekman! Little did he think&mdash;But I must not interrupt the
+      story with moral reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The preparations that he made for his final effort at conversion were
+      thorough and prudent. He had a private interview with Dewlap in regard to
+      the construction of a practical fishing-costume for a lady, which resulted
+      in something more reasonable and workmanlike than had ever been turned out
+      by that famous artist. He ordered from Hook and Catchett a lady's
+      angling-outfit of the most enticing description,&mdash;a split-bamboo rod,
+      light as a girl's wish, and strong as a matron's will; an oxidized silver
+      reel, with a monogram on one side, and a sapphire set in the handle for
+      good luck; a book of flies, of all sizes and colours, with the correct
+      names inscribed in gilt letters on each page. He surrounded his favourite
+      sport with an aureole of elegance and beauty. And then he took Cornelia in
+      September to the Upper Dam at Rangeley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went reluctant. She arrived disgusted. She stayed incredulous. She
+      returned&mdash;Wait a bit, and you shall hear how she returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Upper Dam at Rangeley is the place, of all others in the world, where
+      the lunacy of angling may be seen in its incurable stage. There is a cosy
+      little inn, called a camp, at the foot of a big lake. In front of the inn
+      is a huge dam of gray stone, over which the river plunges into a great
+      oval pool, where the trout assemble in the early fall to perpetuate their
+      race. From the tenth of September to the thirtieth, there is not an hour
+      of the day or night when there are no boats floating on that pool, and no
+      anglers trailing the fly across its waters. Before the late fishermen are
+      ready to come in at midnight, the early fishermen may be seen creeping
+      down to the shore with lanterns in order to begin before cock-crow. The
+      number of fish taken is not large,&mdash;perhaps five or six for the whole
+      company on an average day,&mdash;but the size is sometimes enormous,&mdash;nothing
+      under three pounds is counted,&mdash;and they pervade thought and
+      conversation at the Upper Dam to the exclusion of every other subject.
+      There is no driving, no dancing, no golf, no tennis. There is nothing to
+      do but fish or die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first, Cornelia thought she would choose the latter alternative. But a
+      remark of that skilful and morose old angler, McTurk, which she overheard
+      on the verandah after supper, changed her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Women have no sporting instinct," said he. "They only fish because they
+      see men doing it. They are imitative animals."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That same night she told Beekman, in the subdued tone which the
+      architectural construction of the house imposes upon all confidential
+      communications in the bedrooms, but with resolution in every accent, that
+      she proposed to go fishing with him on the morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But not on that pool, right in front of the house, you understand. There
+      must be some other place, out on the lake, where we can fish for three or
+      four days, until I get the trick of this wobbly rod. Then I'll show that
+      old bear, McTurk, what kind of an animal woman is."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beekman was simply delighted. Five days of diligent practice at the mouth
+      of Mill Brook brought his pupil to the point where he pronounced her safe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course," he said patronizingly, "you have 'nt learned all about it
+      yet. That will take years. But you can get your fly out thirty feet, and
+      you can keep the tip of your rod up. If you do that, the trout will hook
+      himself, in rapid water, eight times out of ten. For playing him, if you
+      follow my directions, you 'll be all right. We will try the pool tonight,
+      and hope for a medium-sized fish."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cornelia said nothing, but smiled and nodded. She had her own thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At about nine o'clock Saturday night, they anchored their boat on the edge
+      of the shoal where the big eddy swings around, put out the lantern and
+      began to fish. Beekman sat in the bow of the boat, with his rod over the
+      left side; Cornelia in the stern, with her rod over the right side. The
+      night was cloudy and very black. Each of them had put on the largest
+      possible fly, one a "Bee-Pond" and the other a "Dragon;" but even these
+      were invisible. They measured out the right length of line, and let the
+      flies drift back until they hung over the shoal, in the curly water where
+      the two currents meet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were three other boats to the left of them. McTurk was their only
+      neighbour in the darkness on the right. Once they heard him swearing
+      softly to himself, and knew that he had hooked and lost a fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Away down at the tail of the pool, dimly visible through the gloom, the
+      furtive fisherman, Parsons, had anchored his boat. No noise ever came from
+      that craft. If he wished to change his position, he did not pull up the
+      anchor and let it down again with a bump. He simply lengthened or
+      shortened his anchor rope. There was no click of the reel when he played a
+      fish. He drew in and paid out the line through the rings by hand, without
+      a sound. What he thought when a fish got away, no one knew, for he never
+      said it. He concealed his angling as if it had been a conspiracy. Twice
+      that night they heard a faint splash in the water near his boat, and twice
+      they saw him put his arm over the side in the darkness and bring it back
+      again very quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's the second fish for Parsons," whispered Beekman, "what a secretive
+      old Fortunatus he is! He knows more about fishing than any man on the
+      pool, and talks less."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cornelia did not answer. Her thoughts were all on the tip of her own rod.
+      About eleven o'clock a fine, drizzling rain set in. The fishing was very
+      slack. All the other boats gave it up in despair; but Cornelia said she
+      wanted to stay out a little longer, they might as well finish up the week.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At precisely fifty minutes past eleven, Beekman reeled up his line, and
+      remarked with firmness that the holy Sabbath day was almost at hand and
+      they ought to go in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not till I 've landed this trout," said Cornelia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What? A trout! Have you got one?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly; I 've had him on for at least fifteen minutes. I 'm playing
+      him Mr. Parsons' way. You might as well light the lantern and get the net
+      ready; he's coming in towards the boat now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beekman broke three matches before he made the lantern burn; and when he
+      held it up over the gunwale, there was the trout sure enough, gleaming
+      ghostly pale in the dark water, close to the boat, and quite tired out. He
+      slipped the net over the fish and drew it in,&mdash;a monster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I 'll carry that trout, if you please," said Cornelia, as they stepped
+      out of the boat; and she walked into the camp, on the last stroke of
+      midnight, with the fish in her hand, and quietly asked for the steelyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eight pounds and fourteen ounces,&mdash;that was the weight. Everybody was
+      amazed. It was the "best fish" of the year. Cornelia showed no sign of
+      exultation, until just as John was carrying the trout to the ice-house.
+      Then she flashed out:&mdash;"Quite a fair imitation, Mr. McTurk,&mdash;is
+      n't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now McTurk's best record for the last fifteen years was seven pounds and
+      twelve ounces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far as McTurk is concerned, this is the end of the story. But not for
+      the De Peysters. I wish it were. Beekman went to sleep that night with a
+      contented spirit. He felt that his experiment in education had been a
+      success. He had made his wife an angler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had indeed, and to an extent which he little suspected. That Upper Dam
+      trout was to her like the first taste of blood to the tiger. It seemed to
+      change, at once, not so much her character as the direction of her vital
+      energy. She yielded to the lunacy of angling, not by slow degrees, (as
+      first a transient delusion, then a fixed idea, then a chronic infirmity,
+      finally a mild insanity,) but by a sudden plunge into the most violent
+      mania. So far from being ready to die at Upper Dam, her desire now was to
+      live there&mdash;and to live solely for the sake of fishing&mdash;as long
+      as the season was open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two hundred and forty hours left to midnight on the thirtieth
+      of September. At least two hundred of these she spent on the pool; and
+      when Beekman was too exhausted to manage the boat and the net and the
+      lantern for her, she engaged a trustworthy guide to take Beekman's place
+      while he slept. At the end of the last day her score was twenty-three,
+      with an average of five pounds and a quarter. His score was nine, with an
+      average of four pounds. He had succeeded far beyond his wildest hopes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next year his success became even more astonishing. They went to the
+      Titan Club in Canada. The ugliest and most inaccessible sheet of water in
+      that territory is Lake Pharaoh. But it is famous for the extraordinary
+      fishing at a certain spot near the outlet, where there is just room enough
+      for one canoe. They camped on Lake Pharaoh for six weeks, by Mrs. De
+      Peyster's command; and her canoe was always the first to reach the
+      fishing-ground in the morning, and the last to leave it in the evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some one asked him, when he returned to the city, whether he had good
+      luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite fair," he tossed off in a careless way; "we took over three hundred
+      pounds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To your own rod?" asked the inquirer, in admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No-o-o," said Beekman, "there were two of us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two of them, also, the following year, when they joined the
+      Natasheebo Salmon Club and fished that celebrated river in Labrador. The
+      custom of drawing lots every night for the water that each member was to
+      angle over the next day, seemed to be especially designed to fit the
+      situation. Mrs. De Peyster could fish her own pool and her husband's too.
+      The result of that year's fishing was something phenomenal. She had a
+      score that made a paragraph in the newspapers and called out editorial
+      comment. One editor was so inadequate to the situation as to entitle the
+      article in which he described her triumph "The Equivalence of Woman." It
+      was well-meant, but she was not at all pleased with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was now not merely an angler, but a "record" angler of the most
+      virulent type. Wherever they went, she wanted, and she got, the pick of
+      the water. She seemed to be equally at home on all kinds of streams, large
+      and small. She would pursue the little mountain-brook trout in the early
+      spring, and the Labrador salmon in July, and the huge speckled trout of
+      the northern lakes in September, with the same avidity and resolution. All
+      that she cared for was to get the best and the most of the fishing at each
+      place where she angled. This she always did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Beekman,&mdash;well, for him there were no more long separations from
+      the partner of his life while he went off to fish some favourite stream.
+      There were no more home-comings after a good day's sport to find her clad
+      in cool and dainty raiment on the verandah, ready to welcome him with
+      friendly badinage. There was not even any casting of the fly around
+      Hardscrabble Point while she sat in the canoe reading a novel, looking up
+      with mild and pleasant interest when he caught a larger fish than usual,
+      as an older and wiser person looks at a child playing some innocent game.
+      Those days of a divided interest between man and wife were gone. She was
+      now fully converted, and more. Beekman and Cornelia were one; and she was
+      the one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last time I saw the De Peysters he was following her along the
+      Beaverkill, carrying a landing-net and a basket, but no rod. She paused
+      for a moment to exchange greetings, and then strode on down the stream. He
+      lingered for a few minutes longer to light a pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, old man," I said, "you certainly have succeeded in making an angler
+      of Mrs. De Peyster."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, indeed," he answered,&mdash;"have n't I?" Then he continued, after a
+      few thoughtful puffs of smoke, "Do you know, I 'm not quite so sure as I
+      used to be that fishing is the best of all sports. I sometimes think of
+      giving it up and going in for croquet."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FISHING IN BOOKS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "SIMPSON.&mdash;Have you ever seen any American books on angling,
+     Fisher?"
+
+     "FISHER.&mdash;No, I do not think there are any published.
+     Brother Jonathan is not yet sufficiently civilized to
+     produce anything original on the gentle art.  There is good
+     trout-fishing in America, and the streams, which are all
+     free, are much less fished than in our Island, 'from the
+     small number of gentlemen,' as an American writer says, 'who
+     are at leisure to give their time to it.'"
+
+     &mdash;WILLIAM ANDREW CHATTO: The Angler's Souvenir (London,
+     1835).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That wise man and accomplished scholar, Sir Henry Wotton, the friend of
+      Izaak Walton and ambassador of King James I to the republic of Venice, was
+      accustomed to say that "he would rather live five May months than forty
+      Decembers." The reason for this preference was no secret to those who knew
+      him. It had nothing to do with British or Venetian politics. It was simply
+      because December, with all its domestic joys, is practically a dead month
+      in the angler's calendar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His occupation is gone. The better sort of fish are out of season. The
+      trout are lean and haggard: it is no trick to catch them and no treat to
+      eat them. The salmon, all except the silly kelts, have run out to sea, and
+      the place of their habitation no man knoweth. There is nothing for the
+      angler to do but wait for the return of spring, and meanwhile encourage
+      and sustain his patience with such small consolations in kind as a
+      friendly Providence may put within his reach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some solace may be found, on a day of crisp, wintry weather, in the
+      childish diversion of catching pickerel through the ice. This method of
+      taking fish is practised on a large scale and with elaborate machinery by
+      men who supply the market. I speak not of their commercial enterprise and
+      its gross equipage, but of ice-fishing in its more sportive and desultory
+      form, as it is pursued by country boys and the incorrigible village idler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You choose for this pastime a pond where the ice is not too thick, lest
+      the labour of cutting through should be discouraging; nor too thin, lest
+      the chance of breaking in should be embarrassing. You then chop out, with
+      almost any kind of a hatchet or pick, a number of holes in the ice, making
+      each one six or eight inches in diameter, and placing them about five or
+      six feet apart. If you happen to know the course of a current flowing
+      through the pond, or the location of a shoal frequented by minnows, you
+      will do well to keep near it. Over each hole you set a small contrivance
+      called a "tilt-up." It consists of two sticks fastened in the middle, at
+      right angles to each other. The stronger of the two is laid across the
+      opening in the ice. The other is thus balanced above the aperture, with a
+      baited hook and line attached to one end, while the other end is adorned
+      with a little flag. For choice, I would have the flags red. They look
+      gayer, and I imagine they are more lucky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you have thus baited and set your tilt-ups,&mdash;twenty or thirty of
+      them,&mdash;you may put on your skates and amuse yourself by gliding to
+      and fro on the smooth surface of the ice, cutting figures of eight and
+      grapevines and diamond twists, while you wait for the pickerel to begin
+      their part of the performance. They will let you know when they are ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fish, swimming around in the dim depths under the ice, sees one of your
+      baits, fancies it, and takes it in. The moment he tries to run away with
+      it he tilts the little red flag into the air and waves it backward and
+      forward. "Be quick!" he signals all unconsciously; "here I am; come and
+      pull me up!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When two or three flags are fluttering at the same moment, far apart on
+      the pond, you must skate with speed and haul in your lines promptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How hard it is, sometimes, to decide which one you will take first! That
+      flag in the middle of the pond has been waving for at least a minute; but
+      the other, in the corner of the bay, is tilting up and down more
+      violently: it must be a larger fish. Great Dagon! There's another red
+      signal flying, away over by the point! You hesitate, you make a few
+      strokes in one direction, then you whirl around and dart the other way.
+      Meantime one of the tilt-ups, constructed with too short a cross-stick,
+      has been pulled to one side, and disappears in the hole. One pickerel in
+      the pond carries a flag. Another tilt-up ceases to move and falls flat
+      upon the ice. The bait has been stolen. You dash desperately toward the
+      third flag and pull in the only fish that is left,&mdash;probably the
+      smallest of them all!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A surplus of opportunities does not insure the best luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A room with seven doors&mdash;like the famous apartment in Washington's
+      headquarters at Newburgh&mdash;is an invitation to bewilderment. I would
+      rather see one fair opening in life than be confused by three dazzling
+      chances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a good story about fishing through the ice which formed part of
+      the stock-in-conversation of that ingenious woodsman, Martin Moody,
+      Esquire, of Big Tupper Lake. "'T was a blame cold day," he said, "and the
+      lines friz up stiffer 'n a fence-wire, jus' as fast as I pulled 'em in,
+      and my fingers got so dum' frosted I could n't bait the hooks. But the
+      fish was thicker and hungrier 'n flies in June. So I jus' took a piece of
+      bait and held it over one o' the holes. Every time a fish jumped up to git
+      it, I 'd kick him out on the ice. I tell ye, sir, I kicked out more 'n
+      four hundred pounds of pick'rel that morning. Yaas, 't was a big lot, I
+      'low, but then 't was a cold day! I jus' stacked 'em up solid, like
+      cordwood."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us now leave this frigid subject! Iced fishing is but a chilling and
+      unsatisfactory imitation of real sport. The angler will soon turn from it
+      with satiety, and seek a better consolation for the winter of his
+      discontent in the entertainment of fishing in books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Angling is the only sport that boasts the honour of having given a classic
+      to literature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Izaak Walton's success with THE COMPLEAT ANGLER was a fine illustration of
+      fisherman's luck. He set out, with some aid from an adept in fly-fishing
+      and cookery, named Thomas Barker, to produce a little "discourse of fish
+      and fishing" which should serve as a useful manual for quiet persons
+      inclined to follow the contemplative man's recreation. He came home with a
+      book which has made his name beloved by ten generations of gentle readers,
+      and given him a secure place in the Pantheon of letters,&mdash;not a
+      haughty eminence, but a modest niche, all his own, and ever adorned with
+      grateful offerings of fresh flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was great luck. But it was well-deserved, and therefore it has not
+      been grudged or envied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walton was a man so peaceful and contented, so friendly in his
+      disposition, and so innocent in all his goings, that only three other
+      writers, so far as I know, have ever spoken ill of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One was that sour-complexioned Cromwellian trooper, Richard Franck, who
+      wrote in 1658 an envious book entitled NORTHERN MEMOIRS, CALCULATED FOR
+      THE MERIDIAN OF SCOTLAND, ETC., TO WHICH IS ADDED THE CONTEMPLATIVE AND
+      PRACTICAL ANGLER. In this book the furious Franck first pays Walton the
+      flattery of imitation, and then further adorns him with abuse, calling THE
+      COMPLEAT ANGLER "an indigested octavo, stuffed with morals from Dubravius
+      and others," and more than hinting that the father of anglers knew little
+      or nothing of "his uncultivated art." Walton was a Churchman and a
+      Loyalist, you see, while Franck was a Commonwealth man and an Independent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second detractor of Walton was Lord Byron, who wrote
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb in his gullet
+      Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But Byron is certainly a poor authority on the quality of mercy. His
+      contempt need not cause an honest man overwhelming distress. I should call
+      it a complimentary dislike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third author who expressed unpleasant sentiments in regard to Walton
+      was Leigh Hunt. Here, again, I fancy that partizan prejudice had something
+      to do with the dislike. Hunt was a radical in politics and religion.
+      Moreover there was a feline strain in his character, which made it
+      necessary for him to scratch somebody now and then, as a relief to his
+      feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walton was a great quoter. His book is not "stuffed," as Franck jealously
+      alleged, but it is certainly well sauced with piquant references to other
+      writers, as early as the author of the Book of Job, and as late as John
+      Dennys, who betrayed to the world THE SECRETS OF ANGLING in 1613. Walton
+      further seasoned his book with fragments of information about fish and
+      fishing, more or less apocryphal, gathered from Aelian, Pliny, Plutarch,
+      Sir Francis Bacon, Dubravius, Gesner, Rondeletius, the learned
+      Aldrovandus, the venerable Bede, the divine Du Bartas, and many others. He
+      borrowed freely for the adornment of his discourse, and did not scorn to
+      make use of what may be called LIVE QUOTATIONS,&mdash;that is to say, the
+      unpublished remarks of his near contemporaries, caught in friendly
+      conversation, or handed down by oral tradition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these various seasonings did not disguise, they only enhanced, the
+      delicate flavour of the dish which he served up to his readers. This was
+      all of his own taking, and of a sweetness quite incomparable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I like a writer who is original enough to water his garden with
+      quotations, without fear of being drowned out. Such men are Charles Lamb
+      and James Russell Lowell and John Burroughs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walton's book is as fresh as a handful of wild violets and sweet lavender.
+      It breathes the odours of the green fields and the woods. It tastes of
+      simple, homely, appetizing things like the "syllabub of new verjuice in a
+      new-made haycock" which the milkwoman promised to give Piscator the next
+      time he came that way. Its music plays the tune of A CONTENTED HEART over
+      and over again without dulness, and charms us into harmony with
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "A noise like the sound of a hidden brook
+      In the leafy month of June,
+      That to the sleeping woods all night
+      Singeth a quiet tune."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Walton has been quoted even more than any of the writers whom he quotes.
+      It would be difficult, even if it were not ungrateful, to write about
+      angling without referring to him. Some pretty saying, some wise reflection
+      from his pages, suggests itself at almost every turn of the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet his book, though it be the best, is not the only readable one that
+      his favourite recreation has begotten. The literature of angling is
+      extensive, as any one may see who will look at the list of the collection
+      presented by Mr. John Bartlett to Harvard University, or study the
+      catalogue of the piscatorial library of Mr. Dean Sage, of Albany, who
+      himself has contributed an admirable book on THE RISTIGOUCHE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor is this literature altogether composed of dry and technical treatises,
+      interesting only to the confirmed anglimaniac, or to the young novice
+      ardent in pursuit of practical information. There is a good deal of juicy
+      reading in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Books about angling should be divided (according to De Quincey's method)
+      into two classes,&mdash;the literature of knowledge, and the literature of
+      power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first class contains the handbooks on rods and tackle, the directions
+      how to angle for different kinds of fish, and the guides to various
+      fishing-resorts. The weakness of these books is that they soon fall out of
+      date, as the manufacture of tackle is improved, the art of angling
+      refined, and the fish in once-famous waters are educated or exterminated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas, how transient is the fashion of this world, even in angling! The old
+      manuals with their precise instruction for trimming and painting
+      trout-rods eighteen feet long, and their painful description of
+      "oyntments" made of nettle-juice, fish-hawk oil, camphor, cat's fat, or
+      assafoedita, (supposed to allure the fish,) are altogether behind the age.
+      Many of the flies described by Charles Cotton and Thomas Barker seem to
+      have gone out of style among the trout. Perhaps familiarity has bred
+      contempt. Generation after generation of fish have seen these same old
+      feathered confections floating on the water, and learned by sharp
+      experience that they do not taste good. The blase trout demand something
+      new, something modern. It is for this reason, I suppose, that an
+      altogether original fly, unheard of, startling, will often do great
+      execution in an over-fished pool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certain it is that the art of angling, in settled regions, is growing more
+      dainty and difficult. You must cast a longer, lighter line; you must use
+      finer leaders; you must have your flies dressed on smaller hooks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And another thing is certain: in many places (described in the ancient
+      volumes) where fish were once abundant, they are now like the shipwrecked
+      sailors in Vergil his Aeneid,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "rari nantes in gurgite vasto."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The floods themselves are also disappearing. Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman
+      was telling me, the other day, of the trout-brook that used to run through
+      the Connecticut village when he nourished a poet's youth. He went back to
+      visit the stream a few years since, and it was gone, literally vanished
+      from the face of earth, stolen to make a watersupply for the town, and
+      used for such base purposes as the washing of clothes and the sprinkling
+      of streets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I remember an expedition with my father, some twenty years ago, to Nova
+      Scotia, whither we set out to realize the hopes kindled by an ANGLER'S
+      GUIDE written in the early sixties. It was like looking for tall clocks in
+      the farmhouses around Boston. The harvest had been well gleaned before our
+      arrival, and in the very place where our visionary author located his most
+      famous catch we found a summer hotel and a sawmill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'T is strange and sad, how many regions there are where "the fishing was
+      wonderful forty years ago"!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second class of angling books&mdash;the literature of power&mdash;includes
+      all (even those written with some purpose of instruction) in which the
+      gentle fascinations of the sport, the attractions of living out-of-doors,
+      the beauties of stream and woodland, the recollections of happy adventure,
+      and the cheerful thoughts that make the best of a day's luck, come clearly
+      before the author's mind and find some fit expression in his words. Of
+      such books, thank Heaven, there is a plenty to bring a Maytide charm and
+      cheer into the fisherman's dull December. I will name, by way of random
+      tribute from a grateful but unmethodical memory, a few of these
+      consolatory volumes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First of all comes a family of books that were born in Scotland and smell
+      of the heather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever a Scotchman's conscience permits him to do, is likely to be done
+      with vigour and a fiery mind. In trade and in theology, in fishing and in
+      fighting, he is all there and thoroughly kindled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is an old-fashioned book called THE MOOR AND THE LOCH, by John
+      Colquhoun, which is full of contagious enthusiasm. Thomas Tod Stoddart was
+      a most impassioned angler, (though over-given to strong language,) and in
+      his ANGLING REMINISCENCES he has touched the subject with a happy hand,&mdash;happiest
+      when he breaks into poetry and tosses out a song for the fisherman.
+      Professor John Wilson of the University of Edinburgh held the chair of
+      Moral Philosophy in that institution, but his true fame rests on his
+      well-earned titles of A. M. and F. R. S.,&mdash;Master of Angling, and
+      Fisherman Royal of Scotland. His RECREATIONS OF CHRISTOPHER NORTH, albeit
+      their humour is sometimes too boisterously hammered in, are genial and
+      generous essays, overflowing with passages of good-fellowship and
+      pedestrian fancy. I would recommend any person in a dry and melancholy
+      state of mind to read his paper on "Streams," in the first volume of
+      ESSAYS CRITICAL AND IMAGINATIVE. But it must be said, by way of warning to
+      those with whom dryness is a matter of principle, that all Scotch
+      fishing-books are likely to be sprinkled with Highland Dew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among English anglers, Sir Humphry Davy is one of whom Christopher North
+      speaks rather slightingly. Nevertheless his SALMONIA is well worth
+      reading, not only because it was written by a learned man, but because it
+      exhales the spirit of cheerful piety and vital wisdom. Charles Kingsley
+      was another great man who wrote well about angling. His CHALK-STREAM
+      STUDIES are clear and sparkling. They cleanse the mind and refresh the
+      heart and put us more in love with living. Of quite a different style are
+      the MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR AN ANGLER, AND MISERIES OF FISHING, which were
+      written by Richard Penn, a grandson of the founder of Pennsylvania. This
+      is a curious and rare little volume, professing to be a compilation from
+      the "Common Place Book of the Houghton Fishing Club," and dealing with the
+      subject from a Pickwickian point of view. I suppose that William Penn
+      would have thought his grandson a frivolous writer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he could not have entertained such an opinion of the Honourable Robert
+      Boyle, of whose OCCASIONAL REFLECTIONS no less than twelve discourses
+      treat "of Angling Improved to Spiritual Uses." The titles of some of these
+      discourses are quaint enough to quote. "Upon the being called upon to rise
+      early on a very fair morning." "Upon the mounting, singing, and lighting
+      of larks." "Upon fishing with a counterfeit fly." "Upon a danger arising
+      from an unseasonable contest with the steersman." "Upon one's drinking
+      water out of the brim of his hat." With such good texts it is easy to
+      endure, and easier still to spare, the sermons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Englishmen carry their love of travel into their anglimania, and many of
+      their books describe fishing adventures in foreign parts. RAMBLES WITH A
+      FISHING-ROD, by E. S. Roscoe, tells of happy days in the Salzkammergut and
+      the Bavarian Highlands and Normandy. FISH-TAILS AND A FEW OTHERS, by
+      Bradnock Hall, contains some delightful chapters on Norway. THE ROD IN
+      INDIA, by H. S. Thomas, narrates wonderful adventures with the Mahseer and
+      the Rohu and other pagan fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, after all, I like the English angler best when he travels at home,
+      and writes of dry-fly fishing in the Itchen or the Test, or of wet-fly
+      fishing in Northumberland or Sutherlandshire. There is a fascinating
+      booklet that appeared quietly, some years ago, called AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S
+      DAYS IN DOVE DALE. It runs as easily and merrily and kindly as a little
+      river, full of peace and pure enjoyment. Other books of the same quality
+      have since been written by the same pen,&mdash;DAYS IN CLOVER, FRESH
+      WOODS, BY MEADOW AND STREAM. It is no secret, I believe, that the author
+      is Mr. Edward Marston, the senior member of a London publishing-house. But
+      he still clings to his retiring pen-name of "The Amateur Angler," and
+      represents himself, by a graceful fiction, as all unskilled in the art. An
+      instance of similar modesty is found in Mr. Andrew Lang, who entitles the
+      first chapter of his delightful ANGLING SKETCHES (without which no
+      fisherman's library is complete), "Confessions of a Duffer." This an
+      engaging liberty which no one else would dare to take.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The best English fish-story pure and simple, that I know, is "Crocker's
+      Hole," by H. D. Black-more, the creator of LORNA DOONE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us turn now to American books about angling. Of these the merciful
+      dispensations of Providence have brought forth no small store since Mr.
+      William Andrew Chatto made the ill-natured remark which is pilloried at
+      the head of this chapter. By the way, it seems that Mr. Chatto had never
+      heard of "The Schuylkill Fishing Company," which was founded on that
+      romantic stream near Philadelphia in 1732, nor seen the AUTHENTIC
+      HISTORICAL MEMOIR of that celebrated and amusing society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry for the man who cannot find pleasure in reading the appendix of
+      THE AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK, by Thaddeus Norris; or the discursive pages of
+      Frank Forester's FISH AND FISHING; or the introduction and notes of that
+      unexcelled edition of Walton which was made by the Reverend Doctor George
+      W. Bethune; or SUPERIOR FISHING and GAME FISH OF THE NORTH, by Mr. Robert
+      B. Roosevelt; or Henshall's BOOK OF THE BLACK BASS; or the admirable
+      disgressions of Mr. Henry P. Wells, in his FLY-RODS AND FLY-TACKLE, and
+      THE AMERICAN SALMON ANGLER. Dr. William C. Prime has never put his
+      profound knowledge of the art of angling into a manual of technical
+      instruction; but he has written of the delights of the sport in OWL CREEK
+      LETTERS, and in I GO A-FISHING, and in some of the chapters of ALONG NEW
+      ENGLAND ROADS and AMONG NEW ENGLAND HILLS, with a persuasive skill that
+      has created many new anglers, and made many old ones grateful. It is a
+      fitting coincidence of heredity that his niece, Mrs. Annie Trumbull
+      Slosson, is the author of the most tender and pathetic of all angling
+      stories, FISHIN' JIMMY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it is not only in books written altogether from his peculiar point of
+      view and to humour his harmless insanity, that the angler may find
+      pleasant reading about his favourite pastime. There are excellent bits of
+      fishing scattered all through the field of good literature. It seems as if
+      almost all the men who could write well had a friendly feeling for the
+      contemplative sport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Plutarch, in THE LIVES OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS AND ROMANS, tells a capital
+      fish-story of the manner in which the Egyptian Cleopatra fooled that
+      far-famed Roman wight, Marc Antony, when they were angling together on the
+      Nile. As I recall it, from a perusal in early boyhood, Antony was having
+      very bad luck indeed; in fact he had taken nothing, and was sadly put out
+      about it. Cleopatra, thinking to get a rise out of him, secretly told one
+      of her attendants to dive over the opposite side of the barge and fasten a
+      salt fish to the Roman general's hook. The attendant was much pleased with
+      this commission, and, having executed it, proceeded to add a fine stroke
+      of his own; for when he had made the fish fast on the hook, he gave a
+      great pull to the line and held on tightly. Antony was much excited and
+      began to haul violently at his tackle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jupiter!" he exclaimed, "it was long in coming, but I have a colossal
+      bite now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have a care," said Cleopatra, laughing behind her sunshade, "or he will
+      drag you into the water. You must give him line when he pulls hard."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a denarius will I give!" rudely responded Antony. "I mean to have
+      this halibut or Hades!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the man under the boat, being out of breath, let the line
+      go, and Antony, falling backward, drew up the salted herring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take that fish off the hook, Palinurus," he proudly said. "It is not as
+      large as I thought, but it looks like the oldest one that has been caught
+      to-day."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such, in effect, is the tale narrated by the veracious Plutarch. And if
+      any careful critic wishes to verify my quotation from memory, he may
+      compare it with the proper page of Langhorne's translation; I think it is
+      in the second volume, near the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Walter Scott, who once described himself as
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "No fisher,
+      But a well-wisher
+      To the game,"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      has an amusing passage of angling in the third chapter of REDGAUNTLET.
+      Darsie Latimer is relating his adventures in Dumfriesshire. "By the way,"
+      says he, "old Cotton's instructions, by which I hoped to qualify myself
+      for the gentle society of anglers, are not worth a farthing for this
+      meridian. I learned this by mere accident, after I had waited four mortal
+      hours. I shall never forget an impudent urchin, a cowherd, about twelve
+      years old, without either brogue or bonnet, barelegged, with a very
+      indifferent pair of breeches,&mdash;how the villain grinned in scorn at my
+      landing-net, my plummet, and the gorgeous jury of flies which I had
+      assembled to destroy all the fish in the river. I was induced at last to
+      lend the rod to the sneering scoundrel, to see what he would make of it;
+      and he not only half-filled my basket in an hour, but literally taught me
+      to kill two trouts with my own hand."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus ancient and well-authenticated is the superstition of the angling
+      powers of the barefooted country-boy,&mdash;in fiction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, in that valuable but over-capitalized book, MY
+      NOVEL, makes use of Fishing for Allegorical Purposes. The episode of John
+      Burley and the One-eyed Perch not only points a Moral but adorns the Tale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the works of R. D. Blackmore, angling plays a less instructive but a
+      pleasanter part. It is closely interwoven with love. There is a magical
+      description of trout-fishing on a meadow-brook in ALICE LORRAINE. And who
+      that has read LORNA DOONE, (pity for the man or woman that knows not the
+      delight of that book!) can ever forget how young John Ridd dared his way
+      up the gliddery water-slide, after loaches, and found Lorna in a fair
+      green meadow adorned with flowers, at the top of the brook?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I made a little journey into the Doone Country once, just to see that
+      brook and to fish in it. The stream looked smaller, and the water-slide
+      less terrible, than they seemed in the book. But it was a mighty pretty
+      place after all; and I suppose that even John Ridd, when he came back to
+      it in after years, found it shrunken a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the streams were larger in our boyhood than they are now, except,
+      perhaps, that which flows from the sweetest spring of all, the fountain of
+      love, which John Ridd discovered beside the Bagworthy River,&mdash;and I,
+      on the willow-shaded banks of the Patapsco, where the Baltimore girls fish
+      for gudgeons,&mdash;and you? Come, gentle reader, is there no stream whose
+      name is musical to you, because of a hidden spring of love that you once
+      found on its shore? The waters of that fountain never fail, and in them
+      alone we taste the undiminished fulness of immortal youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stories of William Black are enlivened with fish, and he knew, better
+      than most men, how they should be taken. Whenever he wanted to get two
+      young people engaged to each other, all other devices failing, he sent
+      them out to angle together. If it had not been for fishing, everything in
+      A PRINCESS OF THULE and WHITE HEATHER would have gone wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even men who have been disappointed in love may angle for solace or
+      diversion. I have known some old bachelors who fished excellently well;
+      and others I have known who could find, and give, much pleasure in a day
+      on the stream, though they had no skill in the sport. Of this class was
+      Washington Irving, with an extract from whose SKETCH BOOK I will bring
+      this rambling dissertation to an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Our first essay," says he, "was along a mountain brook among the
+      highlands of the Hudson; a most unfortunate place for the execution of
+      those piscatory tactics which had been invented along the velvet margins
+      of quiet English rivulets. It was one of those wild streams that lavish,
+      among our romantic solitudes, unheeded beauties enough to fill the
+      sketch-book of a hunter of the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap down
+      rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which the trees threw their
+      broad balancing sprays, and long nameless weeds hung in fringes from the
+      impending banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it would brawl and
+      fret along a ravine in the matted shade of a forest, filling it with
+      murmurs; and, after this termagant career, would steal forth into open
+      day, with the most placid, demure face imaginable; as I have seen some
+      pestilent shrew of a housewife, after filling her home with uproar and
+      ill-humour, come dimpling out of doors, swimming and courtesying, and
+      smiling upon all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide, at such times, through some
+      bosom of green meadow-land among the mountains, where the quiet was only
+      interrupted by the occasional tinkling of a bell from the lazy cattle
+      among the clover, or the sound of a woodcutter's axe from the neighbouring
+      forest!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For my part, I was always a bungler at all kinds of sport that required
+      either patience or adroitness, and had not angled above half an hour
+      before I had completely 'satisfied the sentiment,' and convinced myself of
+      the truth of Izaak Walton's opinion, that angling is something like
+      poetry,&mdash;a man must be born to it. I hooked myself instead of the
+      fish; tangled my line in every tree; lost my bait; broke my rod; until I
+      gave up the attempt in despair, and passed the day under the trees,
+      reading old Izaak, satisfied that it was his fascinating vein of honest
+      simplicity and rural feeling that had bewitched me, and not the passion
+      for angling."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A NORWEGIAN HONEYMOON
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "The best rose-bush, after all, is not that which has the
+     fewest thorns, but that which bears the finest roses."
+
+     &mdash;SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ: The Life of Adam.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not all unadulterated sweetness, of course. There were enough
+      difficulties in the way to make it seem desirable; and a few stings of
+      annoyance, now and then, lent piquancy to the adventure. But a good
+      memory, in dealing with the past, has the art of straining out all the
+      beeswax of discomfort, and storing up little jars of pure hydromel. As we
+      look back at our six weeks in Norway, we agree that no period of our
+      partnership in experimental honeymooning has yielded more honey to the
+      same amount of comb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several considerations led us to the resolve of taking our honeymoon
+      experimentally rather than chronologically. We started from the
+      self-evident proposition that it ought to be the happiest time in married
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is perfectly ridiculous," said my lady Graygown, "to suppose that a
+      thing like that can be fixed by the calendar. It may possibly fall in the
+      first month after the wedding, but it is not likely. Just think how
+      slightly two people know each other when they get married. They are in
+      love, of course, but that is not at all the same as being well acquainted.
+      Sometimes the more love, the less acquaintance! And sometimes the more
+      acquaintance, the less love! Besides, at first there are always the notes
+      of thanks for the wedding-presents to be written, and the letters of
+      congratulation to be answered, and it is awfully hard to make each one
+      sound a little different from the others and perfectly natural. Then, you
+      know, everybody seems to suspect you of the folly of being newly married.
+      You run across your friends everywhere, and they grin when they see you.
+      You can't help feeling as if a lot of people were watching you through
+      opera-glasses, or taking snap-shots at you with a kodak. It is absurd to
+      imagine that the first month must be the real honeymoon. And just suppose
+      it were,&mdash;what bad luck that would be! What would there be to look
+      forward to?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every word that fell from her lips seemed to me like the wisdom of
+      Diotima.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are right," I cried; "Portia could not hold a candle to you for clear
+      argument. Besides, suppose two people are imprudent enough to get married
+      in the first week of December, as we did!&mdash;what becomes of the
+      chronological honeymoon then? There is no fishing in December, and all the
+      rivers of Paradise, at least in our latitude, are frozen up. No, my lady,
+      we will discover our month of honey by the empirical method. Each year we
+      will set out together to seek it in a solitude for two; and we will
+      compare notes on moons, and strike the final balance when we are sure that
+      our happiest experiment has been completed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We are not sure of that, even yet. We are still engaged, as a committee of
+      two, in our philosophical investigation, and we decline to make anything
+      but a report of progress. We know more now than we did when we first went
+      honeymooning in the city of Washington. For one thing, we are certain that
+      not even the far-famed rosemary-fields of Narbonne, or the fragrant
+      hillsides of the Corbieres, yield a sweeter harvest to the busy-ness of
+      the bees than the Norwegian meadows and mountain-slopes yielded to our
+      idleness in the summer of 1888.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      II
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rural landscape of Norway, on the long easterly slope that leads up to
+      the watershed among the mountains of the western coast, is not unlike that
+      of Vermont or New Hampshire. The railway from Christiania to the
+      Randsfjord carried us through a hilly country of scattered farms and
+      villages. Wood played a prominent part in the scenery. There were dark
+      stretches of forest on the hilltops and in the valleys; rivers filled with
+      floating logs; sawmills beside the waterfalls; wooden farmhouses painted
+      white; and rail-fences around the fields. The people seemed sturdy,
+      prosperous, independent. They had the familiar habit of coming down to the
+      station to see the train arrive and depart. We might have fancied
+      ourselves on a journey through the Connecticut valley, if it had not been
+      for the soft sing-song of the Norwegian speech and the uniform politeness
+      of the railway officials.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a room that was in the inn at Randsfjord where we spent our first
+      night out! Vast, bare, primitive, with eight windows to admit the
+      persistent nocturnal twilight; a sea-like floor of blue-painted boards,
+      unbroken by a single island of carpet; and a castellated stove in one
+      corner: an apartment for giants, with two little beds for dwarfs on
+      opposite shores of the ocean. There was no telephone; so we arranged a
+      system of communication with a fishing-line, to make sure that the sleepy
+      partner should be awake in time for the early boat in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The journey up the lake took seven hours, and reminded us of a voyage on
+      Lake George; placid, picturesque, and pervaded by summer boarders.
+      Somewhere on the way we had lunch, and were well fortified to take the
+      road when the steamboat landed us at Odnaes, at the head of the lake,
+      about two o'clock in the afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are several methods in which you may drive through Norway. The
+      government maintains posting-stations at the farms along the main
+      travelled highways, where you can hire horses and carriages of various
+      kinds. There are also English tourist agencies which make a business of
+      providing travellers with complete transportation. You may try either of
+      these methods alone, or you may make a judicious mixture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, by an application of the theory of permutations and combinations,
+      you have your choice among four ways of accomplishing a driving-tour.
+      First, you may engage a carriage and pair, with a driver, from one of the
+      tourist agencies, and roll through your journey in sedentary case,
+      provided your horses do not go lame or give out. Second, you may rely
+      altogether upon the posting-stations to send you on your journey; and this
+      is a very pleasant, lively way, provided there is not a crowd of
+      travellers on the road before you, who take up all the comfortable
+      conveyances and leave you nothing but a jolting cart or a ramshackle
+      KARIOL of the time of St. Olaf. Third, you may rent an easy-riding vehicle
+      (by choice a well-hung gig) for the entire trip, and change ponies at the
+      stations as you drive along; this is the safest way. The fourth method is
+      to hire your horseflesh at the beginning for the whole journey, and pick
+      up your vehicles from place to place. This method is theoretically
+      possible, but I do not know any one who has tried it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our gig was waiting for us at Odnaes. There was a brisk little
+      mouse-coloured pony in the shafts; and it took but a moment to strap our
+      leather portmanteau on the board at the back, perch the postboy on top of
+      it, and set out for our first experience of a Norwegian driving-tour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road at first was level and easy; and we bowled along smoothly through
+      the valley of the Etnaelv, among drooping birch-trees and green fields
+      where the larks were singing. At Tomlevolden, ten miles farther on, we
+      reached the first station, a comfortable old farmhouse, with a great array
+      of wooden outbuildings. Here we had a chance to try our luck with the
+      Norwegian language in demanding "en hest, saa straxt som muligt." This was
+      what the guide-book told us to say when we wanted a horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is great fun in making a random cast on the surface of a strange
+      language. You cannot tell what will come up. It is like an experiment in
+      witchcraft. We should not have been at all surprised, I must confess, if
+      our preliminary incantation had brought forth a cow or a basket of eggs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the good people seemed to divine our intentions; and while we were
+      waiting for one of the stable-boys to catch and harness the new horse, a
+      yellow-haired maiden inquired, in very fair English, if we would not be
+      pleased to have a cup of tea and some butter-bread; which we did with
+      great comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The SKYDSGUT, or so-called postboy, for the next stage of the journey, was
+      a full-grown man of considerable weight. As he climbed to his perch on our
+      portmanteau, my lady Graygown congratulated me on the prudence which had
+      provided that one side of that receptacle should be of an inflexible
+      stiffness, quite incapable of being crushed; otherwise, asked she, what
+      would have become of her Sunday frock under the pressure of this stern
+      necessity of a postboy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I think we should not have cared very much if all our luggage had been
+      smashed on this journey, for the road now began to ascend, and the views
+      over the Etnadal, with its winding river, were of a breadth and sweetness
+      most consoling. Up and up we went, curving in and out through the forest,
+      crossing wild ravines and shadowy dells, looking back at every turn on the
+      wide landscape bathed in golden light. At the station of Sveen, where we
+      changed horse and postboy again, it was already evening. The sun was down,
+      but the mystical radiance of the northern twilight illumined the sky. The
+      dark fir-woods spread around us, and their odourous breath was diffused
+      through the cool, still air. We were crossing the level summit of the
+      plateau, twenty-three hundred feet above the sea. Two tiny woodland lakes
+      gleamed out among the trees. Then the road began to slope gently towards
+      the west, and emerged suddenly on the edge of the forest, looking out over
+      the long, lovely vale of Valders, with snow-touched mountains on the
+      horizon, and the river Baegna shimmering along its bed, a thousand feet
+      below us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a heart-enlarging outlook! What a keen joy of motion, as the wheels
+      rolled down the long incline, and the sure-footed pony swung between the
+      shafts and rattled his hoofs merrily on the hard road! What long, deep
+      breaths of silent pleasure in the crisp night air! What wondrous mingling
+      of lights in the afterglow of sunset, and the primrose bloom of the first
+      stars, and faint foregleamings of the rising moon creeping over the hill
+      behind us! What perfection of companionship without words, as we rode
+      together through a strange land, along the edge of the dark!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we finished the thirty-fifth mile, and drew up in the courtyard of
+      the station at Frydenlund, Graygown sprang out, with a little sigh of
+      regret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is it last night," she cried, "or to-morrow morning? I have n't the least
+      idea what time it is; it seems as if we had been travelling in eternity."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is just ten o'clock," I answered, "and the landlord says there will be
+      a hot supper of trout ready for us in five minutes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be vain to attempt to give a daily record of the whole journey in
+      which we made this fair beginning. It was a most idle and unsystematic
+      pilgrimage. We wandered up and down, and turned aside when fancy beckoned.
+      Sometimes we hurried on as fast as the horses would carry us, driving
+      sixty or seventy miles a day; sometimes we loitered and dawdled, as if we
+      did not care whether we got anywhere or not. If a place pleased us, we
+      stayed and tried the fishing. If we were tired of driving, we took to the
+      water, and travelled by steamer along a fjord, or hired a rowboat to cross
+      from point to point. One day we would be in a good little hotel, with
+      polyglot guests, and serving-maids in stagey Norse costumes,&mdash;like
+      the famous inn at Stalheim, which commands the amazing panorama of the
+      Naerodal. Another day we would lodge in a plain farmhouse like the station
+      at Nedre Vasenden, where eggs and fish were the staples of diet, and the
+      farmer's daughter wore the picturesque peasants' dress, with its tall cap,
+      without any dramatic airs. Lakes and rivers, precipices and gorges,
+      waterfalls and glaciers and snowy mountains were our daily repast. We
+      drove over five hundred miles in various kinds of open wagons, KARIOLS for
+      one, and STOLKJAERRES for two, after we had left our comfortable gig
+      behind us. We saw the ancient dragon-gabled church of Burgund; and the
+      delightful, showery town of Bergen; and the gloomy cliffs of the
+      Geiranger-Fjord laced with filmy cataracts; and the bewitched crags of the
+      Romsdal; and the wide, desolate landscape of Jerkin; and a hundred other
+      unforgotten scenes. Somehow or other we went, (around and about, and up
+      and down, now on wheels, and now on foot, and now in a boat,) all the way
+      from Christiania to Throndhjem. My lady Graygown could give you the exact
+      itinerary, for she has been well brought up, and always keeps a diary. All
+      I know is, that we set out from one city and arrived at the other, and we
+      gathered by the way a collection of instantaneous photographs. I am going
+      to turn them over now, and pick out a few of the clearest pictures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      III
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here is the bridge over the Naeselv at Fagernaes. Just below it is a good
+      pool for trout, but the river is broad and deep and swift. It is difficult
+      wading to get out within reach of the fish. I have taken half a dozen
+      small ones and come to the end of my cast. There is a big one lying out in
+      the middle of the river, I am sure. But the water already rises to my
+      hips; another step will bring it over the top of my waders, and send me
+      downstream feet uppermost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take care!" cries Graygown from the grassy bank, where she sits placidly
+      crocheting some mysterious fabric of white yarn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She does not see the large rock lying at the bottom of the river just
+      beyond me. If I can step on that, and stand there without being swept
+      away, I can reach the mid-current with my flies. It is a long stride and a
+      slippery foothold, but by good luck "the last step which costs" is
+      accomplished. The tiny black and orange hackle goes curling out over the
+      stream, lights softly, and swings around with the current, folding and
+      expanding its feathers as if it were alive. The big trout takes it
+      promptly the instant it passes over him; and I play him and net him
+      without moving from my perilous perch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Graygown waves her crochet-work like a flag, "Bravo!" she cries. "That's a
+      beauty, nearly two pounds! But do be careful about coming back; you are
+      not good enough to take any risks yet."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The station at Skogstad is a solitary farmhouse lying far up on the bare
+      hillside, with its barns and out-buildings grouped around a central
+      courtyard, like a rude fortress. The river travels along the valley below,
+      now wrestling its way through a narrow passage among the rocks, now
+      spreading out at leisure in a green meadow. As we cross the bridge, the
+      crystal water is changed to opal by the sunset glow, and a gentle breeze
+      ruffles the long pools, and the trout are rising freely. It is the perfect
+      hour for fishing. Would Graygown dare to drive on alone to the gate of the
+      fortress, and blow upon the long horn which doubtless hangs beside it, and
+      demand admittance and a lodging, "in the name of the great Jehovah and the
+      Continental Congress,"&mdash;while I angle down the river a mile or so?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certainly she would. What door is there in Europe at which the American
+      girl is afraid to knock? "But wait a moment. How do you ask for fried
+      chicken and pancakes in Norwegian? KYLLING OG PANDEKAGE? How fierce it
+      sounds! All right now. Run along and fish."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The river welcomes me like an old friend. The tune that it sings is the
+      same that the flowing water repeats all around the world. Not otherwise do
+      the lively rapids carry the familiar air, and the larger falls drone out a
+      burly bass, along the west branch of the Penobscot, or down the valley of
+      the Bouquet. But here there are no forests to conceal the course of the
+      stream. It lies as free to the view as a child's thought. As I follow on
+      from pool to pool, picking out a good trout here and there, now from a
+      rocky corner edged with foam, now from a swift gravelly run, now from a
+      snug hiding-place that the current has hollowed out beneath the bank, all
+      the way I can see the fortress far above me on the hillside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am as sure that it has already surrendered to Graygown as if I could
+      discern her white banner of crochet-work floating from the battlements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just before dark, I climb the hill with a heavy basket of fish. The castle
+      gate is open. The scent of chicken and pancakes salutes the weary pilgrim.
+      In a cosy little parlour, adorned with fluffy mats and pictures framed in
+      pine-cones, lit by a hanging lamp with glass pendants, sits the mistress
+      of the occasion, calmly triumphant and plying her crochet-needle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is something mysterious about a woman's fancy-work. It seems to have
+      all the soothing charm of the tobacco-plant, without its inconveniences.
+      Just to see her tranquillity, while she relaxes her mind and busies her
+      fingers with a bit of tatting or embroidery or crochet, gives me a sense
+      of being domesticated, a "homey" feeling, anywhere in the wide world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you ever go to Norway, you must be sure to see the Loenvand. You can
+      set out from the comfortable hotel at Faleide, go up the Indvik Fjord in a
+      rowboat, cross over a two-mile hill on foot or by carriage, spend a happy
+      day on the lake, and return to your inn in time for a late supper. The
+      lake is perhaps the most beautiful in Norway. Long and narrow, it lies
+      like a priceless emerald of palest green, hidden and guarded by jealous
+      mountains. It is fed by huge glaciers, which hang over the shoulders of
+      the hills like ragged cloaks of ice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we row along the shore, trolling in vain for the trout that live in the
+      ice-cold water, fragments of the tattered cloth-of-silver far above us, on
+      the opposite side, are loosened by the touch of the summer sun, and fall
+      from the precipice. They drift downward, at first, as noiselessly as
+      thistledowns; then they strike the rocks and come crashing towards the
+      lake with the hollow roar of an avalanche.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the head of the lake we find ourselves in an enormous amphitheatre of
+      mountains. Glaciers are peering down upon us. Snow-fields glare at us with
+      glistening eyes. Black crags seem to bend above us with an eternal frown.
+      Streamers of foam float from the forehead of the hills and the lips of the
+      dark ravines. But there is a little river of cold, pure water flowing from
+      one of the rivers of ice, and a pleasant shelter of young trees and bushes
+      growing among the debris of shattered rocks; and there we build our
+      camp-fire and eat our lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hunger is a most impudent appetite. It makes a man forget all the
+      proprieties. What place is there so lofty, so awful, that he will not dare
+      to sit down in it and partake of food? Even on the side of Mount Sinai,
+      the elders of Israel spread their out-of-door table, "and did eat and
+      drink."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see the Tarn of the Elk at this moment, just as it looked in the clear
+      sunlight of that August afternoon, ten years ago. Far down in a hollow of
+      the desolate hills it nestles, four thousand feet above the sea. The
+      moorland trail hangs high above it, and, though it is a mile away, every
+      curve of the treeless shore, every shoal and reef in the light green water
+      is clearly visible. With a powerful field-glass one can almost see the
+      large trout for which the pond is famous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shelter-hut on the bank is built of rough gray stones, and the roof is
+      leaky to the light as well as to the weather. But there are two beds in
+      it, one for my guide and one for me; and a practicable fireplace, which is
+      soon filled with a blaze of comfort. There is also a random library of
+      novels, which former fishermen have thoughtfully left behind them. I like
+      strong reading in the wilderness. Give me a story with plenty of danger
+      and wholesome fighting in it,&mdash;"The Three Musketeers," or "Treasure
+      Island," or "The Afghan's Knife." Intricate studies of social dilemmas and
+      tales of mild philandering seem bloodless and insipid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trout in the Tarn of the Elk are large, undoubtedly, but they are also
+      few in number and shy in disposition. Either some of the peasants have
+      been fishing over them with the deadly "otter," or else they belong to
+      that variety of the trout family known as TRUTTA DAMNOSA,&mdash;the
+      species which you can see but cannot take. We watched these aggravating
+      fish playing on the surface at sunset; we saw them dart beneath our boat
+      in the early morning; but not until a driving snowstorm set in, about noon
+      of the second day, did we succeed in persuading any of them to take the
+      fly. Then they rose, for a couple of hours, with amiable perversity. I
+      caught five, weighing between two and four pounds each, and stopped
+      because my hands were so numb that I could cast no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now for a long tramp over the hills and home. Yes, home; for yonder in the
+      white house at Drivstuen, with fuchsias and geraniums blooming in the
+      windows, and a pretty, friendly Norse girl to keep her company, my lady is
+      waiting for me. See, she comes running out to the door, in the gathering
+      dusk, with a red flower in her hair, and hails me with the fisherman's
+      greeting. WHAT LUCK?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, THIS luck, at all events! I can show you a few good fish, and sit
+      down with you to a supper of reindeer-venison and a quiet evening of music
+      and talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shall I forget thee, hospitable Stuefloten, dearest to our memory of all
+      the rustic stations in Norway? There are no stars beside thy name in the
+      pages of Baedeker. But in the book of our hearts a whole constellation is
+      thine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The long, low, white farmhouse stands on a green hill at the head of the
+      Romsdal. A flourishing crop of grass and flowers grows on the stable-roof,
+      and there is a little belfry with a big bell to call the labourers home
+      from the fields. In the corner of the living-room of the old house there
+      is a broad fireplace built across the angle. Curious cupboards are tucked
+      away everywhere. The long table in the dining-room groans thrice a day
+      with generous fare. There are as many kinds of hot bread as in a Virginia
+      country-house; the cream is thick enough to make a spoon stand up in
+      amazement; once, at dinner, we sat embarrassed before six different
+      varieties of pudding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening, when the saffron light is beginning to fade, we go out and
+      walk in the road before the house, looking down the long mystical vale of
+      the Rauma, or up to the purple western hills from which the clear streams
+      of the Ulvaa flow to meet us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Above Stuefloten the Rauma lingers and meanders through a smoother and
+      more open valley, with broad beds of gravel and flowery meadows. Here the
+      trout and grayling grow fat and lusty, and here we angle for them, day
+      after day, in water so crystalline that when one steps into the stream one
+      hardly knows whether to expect a depth of six inches or six feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tiny English flies and leaders of gossamer are the tackle for such water
+      in midsummer. With this delicate outfit, and with a light hand and a long
+      line, one may easily outfish the native angler, and fill a twelve-pound
+      basket every fair day. I remember an old Norwegian, an inveterate
+      fisherman, whose footmarks we saw ahead of us on the stream all through an
+      afternoon. Footmarks I call them; and so they were, literally, for there
+      were only the prints of a single foot to be seen on the banks of sand, and
+      between them, a series of small, round, deep holes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What kind of a bird made those marks, Frederik?" I asked my faithful
+      guide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is old Pedersen," he said, "with his wooden leg. He makes a dot
+      after every step. We shall catch him in a little while."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sure enough, about six o'clock we saw him standing on a grassy point,
+      hurling his line, with a fat worm on the end of it, far across the stream,
+      and letting it drift down with the current. But the water was too fine for
+      that style of fishing, and the poor old fellow had but a half dozen little
+      fish. My creel was already overflowing, so I emptied out all of the
+      grayling into his bag, and went on up the river to complete my tale of
+      trout before dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when the fishing is over, there is Graygown with the wagon, waiting at
+      the appointed place under the trees, beside the road. The sturdy white
+      pony trots gayly homeward. The pale yellow stars blossom out above the
+      hills again, as they did on that first night when we were driving down
+      into the Valders. Frederik leans over the back of the seat, telling us
+      marvellous tales, in his broken English, of the fishing in a certain lake
+      among the mountains, and of the reindeer-shooting on the fjeld beyond it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is sad that you go to-morrow," says he "but you come back another
+      year, I think, to fish in that lake, and to shoot those reindeer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, Frederik, we are coming back to Norway some day, perhaps,&mdash;who
+      can tell? It is one of the hundred places that we are vaguely planning to
+      revisit. For, though we did not see the midnight sun there, we saw the
+      honeymoon most distinctly. And it was bright enough to take pictures by
+      its light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS?
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that ultimately the
+      sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall become, as
+      it were, interwoven into man's existence. He shall take from all their
+      beauty and enjoy their glory."&mdash;RICHARD JEFFERIES: The Life of the
+      Fields.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the little lad that asked the question; and the answer also, as you
+      will see, was mainly his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had been keeping Sunday afternoon together in our favourite fashion,
+      following out that pleasant text which tells us to "behold the fowls of
+      the air." There is no injunction of Holy Writ less burdensome in
+      acceptance, or more profitable in obedience, than this easy out-of-doors
+      commandment. For several hours we walked in the way of this precept,
+      through the untangled woods that lie behind the Forest Hills Lodge, where
+      a pair of pigeon-hawks had their nest; and around the brambly shores of
+      the small pond, where Maryland yellow-throats and song-sparrows were
+      settled; and under the lofty hemlocks of the fragment of forest across the
+      road, where rare warblers flitted silently among the tree-tops. The light
+      beneath the evergreens was growing dim as we came out from their shadow
+      into the widespread glow of the sunset, on the edge of a grassy hill,
+      overlooking the long valley of the Gale River, and uplooking to the
+      Franconia Mountains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the benediction hour. The placid air of the day shed a new
+      tranquillity over the consoling landscape. The heart of the earth seemed
+      to taste a repose more perfect than that of common days. A hermit-thrush,
+      far up the vale, sang his vesper hymn; while the swallows, seeking their
+      evening meal, circled above the river-fields without an effort, twittering
+      softly, now and then, as if they must give thanks. Slight and indefinable
+      touches in the scene, perhaps the mere absence of the tiny human figures
+      passing along the road or labouring in the distant meadows, perhaps the
+      blue curls of smoke rising lazily from the farmhouse chimneys, or the
+      family groups sitting under the maple-trees before the door, diffused a
+      sabbath atmosphere over the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then said the lad, lying on the grass beside me, "Father, who owns the
+      mountains?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I happened to have heard, the day before, of two or three lumber companies
+      that had bought some of the woodland slopes; so I told him their names,
+      adding that there were probably a good many different owners, whose claims
+      taken all together would cover the whole Franconia range of hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well," answered the lad, after a moment of silence, "I don't see what
+      difference that makes. Everybody can look at them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They lay stretched out before us in the level sunlight, the sharp peaks
+      outlined against the sky, the vast ridges of forest sinking smoothly
+      towards the valleys, the deep hollows gathering purple shadows in their
+      bosoms, and the little foothills standing out in rounded promontories of
+      brighter green from the darker mass behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far to the east, the long comb of Twin Mountain extended itself back into
+      the untrodden wilderness. Mount Garfield lifted a clear-cut pyramid
+      through the translucent air. The huge bulk of Lafayette ascended
+      majestically in front of us, crowned with a rosy diadem of rocks. Eagle
+      Cliff and Bald Mountain stretched their line of scalloped peaks across the
+      entrance to the Notch. Beyond that shadowy vale, the swelling summits of
+      Cannon Mountain rolled away to meet the tumbling waves of Kinsman,
+      dominated by one loftier crested billow that seemed almost ready to curl
+      and break out of green silence into snowy foam. Far down the sleeping
+      Landaff valley the undulating dome of Moosilauke trembled in the distant
+      blue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were all ours, from crested cliff to wooded base. The solemn groves
+      of firs and spruces, the plumed sierras of lofty pines, the stately
+      pillared forests of birch and beech, the wild ravines, the tremulous
+      thickets of silvery poplar, the bare peaks with their wide outlooks, and
+      the cool vales resounding with the ceaseless song of little rivers,&mdash;we
+      knew and loved them all; they ministered peace and joy to us; they were
+      all ours, though we held no title deeds and our ownership had never been
+      recorded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What is property, after all? The law says there are two kinds, real and
+      personal. But it seems to me that the only real property is that which is
+      truly personal, that which we take into our inner life and make our own
+      forever, by understanding and admiration and sympathy and love. This is
+      the only kind of possession that is worth anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gallery of great paintings adorns the house of the Honourable Midas
+      Bond, and every year adds a new treasure to his collection. He knows how
+      much they cost him, and he keeps the run of the quotations at the auction
+      sales, congratulating himself as the price of the works of his well-chosen
+      artists rises in the scale, and the value of his art treasures is
+      enhanced. But why should he call them his? He is only their custodian. He
+      keeps them well varnished, and framed in gilt. But he never passes through
+      those gilded frames into the world of beauty that lies behind the painted
+      canvas. He knows nothing of those lovely places from which the artist's
+      soul and hand have drawn their inspiration. They are closed and barred to
+      him. He has bought the pictures, but he cannot buy the key. The poor art
+      student who wanders through his gallery, lingering with awe and love
+      before the masterpieces, owns them far more truly than Midas does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pomposus Silverman purchased a rich library a few years ago. The books
+      were rare and costly. That was the reason why Pomposus bought them. He was
+      proud to feel that he was the possessor of literary treasures which were
+      not to be found in the houses of his wealthiest acquaintances. But the
+      threadbare Bucherfreund, who was engaged at a slender salary to catalogue
+      the library and take care of it, became the real proprietor. Pomposus paid
+      for the books, but Bucherfreund enjoyed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I do not mean to say that the possession of much money is always a barrier
+      to real wealth of mind and heart. Nor would I maintain that all the poor
+      of this world are rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. But some of them
+      are. And if some of the rich of this world (through the grace of Him with
+      whom all things are possible) are also modest in their tastes, and gentle
+      in their hearts, and open in their minds, and ready to be pleased with
+      unbought pleasures, they simply share in the best things which are
+      provided for all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I speak not now of the strife that men wage over the definition and the
+      laws of property. Doubtless there is much here that needs to be set right.
+      There are men and women in the world who are shut out from the right to
+      earn a living, so poor that they must perish for want of daily bread, so
+      full of misery that there is no room for the tiniest seed of joy in their
+      lives. This is the lingering shame of civilization. Some day, perhaps, we
+      shall find the way to banish it. Some day, every man shall have his title
+      to a share in the world's great work and the world's large joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But meantime it is certain that, where there are a hundred poor bodies who
+      suffer from physical privation, there are a thousand poor souls who suffer
+      from spiritual poverty. To relive this greater suffering there needs no
+      change of laws, only a change of heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What does it profit a man to be the landed proprietor of countless acres
+      unless he can reap the harvest of delight that blooms from every rood of
+      God's earth for the seeing eye and the loving spirit? And who can reap
+      that harvest so closely that there shall not be abundant gleaning left for
+      all mankind? The most that a wide estate can yield to its legal owner is a
+      living. But the real owner can gather from a field of goldenrod, shining
+      in the August sunlight, an unearned increment of delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We measure success by accumulation. The measure is false. The true measure
+      is appreciation. He who loves most has most.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How foolishly we train ourselves for the work of life! We give our most
+      arduous and eager efforts to the cultivation of those faculties which will
+      serve us in the competitions of the forum and the market-place. But if we
+      were wise, we should care infinitely more for the unfolding of those
+      inward, secret, spiritual powers by which alone we can become the owners
+      of anything that is worth having. Surely God is the great proprietor. Yet
+      all His works He has given away. He holds no title-deeds. The one thing
+      that is His, is the perfect understanding, the perfect joy, the perfect
+      love, of all things that He has made. To a share in this high ownership He
+      welcomes all who are poor in spirit. This is the earth which the meek
+      inherit. This is the patrimony of the saints in light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come, laddie," I said to my comrade, "let us go home. You and I are very
+      rich. We own the mountains. But we can never sell them, and we don't want
+      to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A LAZY, IDLE BROOK
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only
+     to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.
+     And it is not by any means certain that a man's business is
+     the most important thing he has to do."
+
+     &mdash;ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: An Apology for Idlers.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I. A CASUAL INTRODUCTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the South Shore of Long Island, all things incline to a natural
+      somnolence. There are no ambitious mountains, no braggart cliffs, no hasty
+      torrents, no hustling waterfalls in that land,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   "In which it seemeth always afternoon."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The salt meadows sleep in the summer sun; the farms and market-gardens
+      yield a placid harvest to a race of singularly unhurried tillers of the
+      soil; the low hills rise with gentle slopes, not caring to get too high in
+      the world, only far enough to catch a pleasant glimpse of the sea and a
+      breath of fresh air; the very trees grow leisurely, as if they felt that
+      they had "all the time there is." And from this dreamy land, close as it
+      lies to the unresting ocean, the tumult of the breakers and the foam of
+      ever-turning tides are shut off by the languid lagoons of the Great South
+      Bay and a long range of dunes, crested with wire-grass, bay-bushes, and
+      wild-roses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In such a country you could not expect a little brook to be noisy, fussy,
+      energetic. If it were not lazy, it would be out of keeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the actual and undisguised idleness of this particular brook was
+      another affair, and one in which it was distinguished among its fellows.
+      For almost all the other little rivers of the South Shore, lazy as they
+      may be by nature, yet manage to do some kind of work before they finish
+      the journey from their crystal-clear springs into the brackish waters of
+      the bay. They turn the wheels of sleepy gristmills, while the miller sits
+      with his hands in his pockets underneath the willow-trees. They fill
+      reservoirs out of which great steam-engines pump the water to quench the
+      thirst of Brooklyn. Even the smaller streams tarry long enough in their
+      seaward sauntering to irrigate a few cranberry-bogs and so provide that
+      savoury sauce which makes the Long Island turkey a fitter subject for
+      Thanksgiving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this brook of which I speak did none of these useful things. It was
+      absolutely out of business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was not a mill, nor a reservoir, nor a cranberry-bog, on all its
+      course of a short mile. The only profitable affair it ever undertook was
+      to fill a small ice-pond near its entrance into the Great South Bay. You
+      could hardly call this a very energetic enterprise. It amounted to little
+      more than a good-natured consent to allow itself to be used by the winter
+      for the making of ice, if the winter happened to be cold enough. Even this
+      passive industry came to nothing; for the water, being separated from the
+      bay only by a short tideway under a wooden bridge on the south country
+      road, was too brackish to freeze easily; and the ice, being pervaded with
+      weeds, was not much relished by the public. So the wooden ice-house,
+      innocent of paint, and toned by the weather to a soft, sad-coloured gray,
+      stood like an improvised ruin among the pine-trees beside the pond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was through this unharvested ice-pond, this fallow field of water, that
+      my lady Graygown and I entered on acquaintance with our lazy, idle brook.
+      We had a house, that summer, a few miles down the bay. But it was a very
+      small house, and the room that we like best was out of doors. So we spent
+      much time in a sailboat,&mdash;by name "The Patience,"&mdash;making
+      voyages of exploration into watery corners and byways. Sailing past the
+      wooden bridge one day, when a strong east wind had made a very low tide,
+      we observed the water flowing out beneath the road with an eddying
+      current. We were interested to discover where such a stream came from. But
+      the sailboat could not go under the bridge, nor even make a landing on the
+      shore without risk of getting aground. The next day we came back in a
+      rowboat to follow the clue of curiosity. The tide was high now, and we
+      passed with the reversed current under the bridge, almost bumping our
+      heads against the timbers. Emerging upon the pond, we rowed across its
+      shallow, weed-encumbered waters, and were introduced without ceremony to
+      one of the most agreeable brooks that we had ever met.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite broad where it came into the pond,&mdash;a hundred feet from
+      side to side,&mdash;bordered with flags and rushes and feathery meadow
+      grasses. The real channel meandered in sweeping curves from bank to bank,
+      and the water, except in the swifter current, was filled with an amazing
+      quantity of some aquatic moss. The woods came straggling down on either
+      shore. There were fallen trees in the stream here and there. On one of the
+      points an old swamp-maple, with its decrepit branches and its leaves
+      already touched with the hectic colours of decay, hung far out over the
+      water which was undermining it, looking and leaning downward, like an aged
+      man who bends, half-sadly and half-willingly, towards the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But for the most part the brook lay wide open to the sky, and the tide,
+      rising and sinking somewhat irregularly in the pond below, made curious
+      alternations in its depth and in the swiftness of its current. For about
+      half a mile we navigated this lazy little river, and then we found that
+      rowing would carry us no farther, for we came to a place where the stream
+      issued with a livelier flood from an archway in a thicket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This woodland portal was not more than four feet wide, and the branches of
+      the small trees were closely interwoven overhead. We shipped the oars and
+      took one of them for a paddle. Stooping down, we pushed the boat through
+      the archway and found ourselves in the Fairy Dell. It was a long, narrow
+      bower, perhaps four hundred feet from end to end, with the brook dancing
+      through it in a joyous, musical flow over a bed of clean yellow sand and
+      white pebbles. There were deep places in the curves where you could hardly
+      touch bottom with an oar, and shallow places in the straight runs where
+      the boat would barely float. Not a ray of unbroken sunlight leaked through
+      the green roof of this winding corridor; and all along the sides there
+      were delicate mosses and tall ferns and wildwood flowers that love the
+      shade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the upper end of the bower our progress in the boat was barred by a low
+      bridge, on a forgotten road that wound through the pine-woods. Here I left
+      my lady Graygown, seated on the shady corner of the bridge with a book,
+      swinging her feet over the stream, while I set out to explore its further
+      course. Above the wood-road there were no more fairy dells, nor easy-going
+      estuaries. The water came down through the most complicated piece of
+      underbrush that I have ever encountered. Alders and swamp maples and
+      pussy-willows and gray birches grew together in a wild confusion.
+      Blackberry bushes and fox-grapes and cat-briers trailed and twisted
+      themselves in an incredible tangle. There was only one way to advance, and
+      that was to wade in the middle of the brook, stooping low, lifting up the
+      pendulous alder-branches, threading a tortuous course, now under and now
+      over the innumerable obstacles, as a darning-needle is pushed in and out
+      through the yarn of a woollen stocking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was dark and lonely in that difficult passage. The brook divided into
+      many channels, turning this way and that way, as if it were lost in the
+      woods. There were huge clumps of OSMUNDA REGALIS spreading their fronds in
+      tropical profusion. Mouldering logs were covered with moss. The water
+      gurgled slowly into deep corners under the banks. Catbirds and blue jays
+      fluttered screaming from the thickets. Cotton-tailed rabbits darted away,
+      showing the white flag of fear. Once I thought I saw the fuscous gleam of
+      a red fox stealing silently through the brush. It would have been no
+      surprise to hear the bark of a raccoon, or see the eyes of a wildcat
+      gleaming through the leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For more than an hour I was pushing my way through this miniature
+      wilderness of half a mile; and then I emerged suddenly, to find myself
+      face to face with&mdash;a railroad embankment and the afternoon express,
+      with its parlour-cars, thundering down to Southampton!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a strange and startling contrast. The explorer's joy, the sense of
+      adventure, the feeling of wildness and freedom, withered and crumpled
+      somewhat preposterously at the sight of the parlour-cars. My scratched
+      hands and wet boots and torn coat seemed unkempt and disreputable. Perhaps
+      some of the well-dressed people looking out at the windows of the train
+      were the friends with whom we were to dine on Saturday. BATECHE! What
+      would they say to such a costume as mine? What did I care what they said!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, all the same, it was a shock, a disenchantment, to find that
+      civilization, with all its absurdities and conventionalities, was so
+      threateningly close to my new-found wilderness. My first enthusiasm was
+      not a little chilled as I walked back, along an open woodland path, to the
+      bridge where Graygown was placidly reading. Reading, I say, though her
+      book was closed, and her brown eyes were wandering over the green leaves
+      of the thicket, and the white clouds drifting, drifting lazily across the
+      blue deep of the sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II. A BETTER ACQUAINTANCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the voyage home, she gently talked me out of my disappointment, and
+      into a wiser frame of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a surprise, of course, she admitted, to find that our wilderness
+      was so little, and to discover the trail of a parlour-car on the edge of
+      Paradise. But why not turn the surprise around, and make it pleasant
+      instead of disagreeable? Why not look at the contrast from the side that
+      we liked best?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not necessary that everybody should take the same view of life that
+      pleased us. The world would not get on very well without people who
+      preferred parlour-cars to canoes, and patent-leather shoes to India-rubber
+      boots, and ten-course dinners to picnics in the woods. These good people
+      were unconsciously toiling at the hard and necessary work of life in order
+      that we, of the chosen and fortunate few, should be at liberty to enjoy
+      the best things in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why should we neglect our opportunities, which were also our real duties?
+      The nervous disease of civilization might prevail all around us, but that
+      ought not to destroy our grateful enjoyment of the lucid intervals that
+      were granted to us by a merciful Providence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why should we not take this little untamed brook, running its humble
+      course through the borders of civilized life and midway between two
+      flourishing summer resorts,&mdash;a brook without a single house or a
+      cultivated field on its banks, as free and beautiful and secluded as if it
+      flowed through miles of trackless forest,&mdash;why not take this brook as
+      a sign that the ordering of the universe had a "good intention" even for
+      inveterate idlers, and that the great Arranger of the world felt some
+      kindness for such gipsy-hearts as ours? What law, human or divine, was
+      there to prevent us from making this stream our symbol of deliverance from
+      the conventional and commonplace, our guide to liberty and a quiet mind?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So reasoned Graygown with her
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          "most silver flow
+     Of subtle-paced counsel in distress."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And, according to her word, so did we. That lazy, idle brook became to us
+      one of the best of friends; the pathfinder of happiness on many a bright
+      summer day; and, through long vacations, the faithful encourager of
+      indolence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indolence in the proper sense of the word, you understand. The meaning
+      which is commonly given to it, as Archbishop Trench pointed out in his
+      suggestive book about WORDS AND THEIR USES, is altogether false. To speak
+      of indolence as if it were a vice is just a great big verbal slander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indolence is a virtue. It comes from two Latin words, which mean freedom
+      from anxiety or grief. And that is a wholesome state of mind. There are
+      times and seasons when it is even a pious and blessed state of mind. Not
+      to be in a hurry; not to be ambitious or jealous or resentful; not to feel
+      envious of anybody; not to fret about to-day nor worry about to-morrow,&mdash;that
+      is the way we ought all to feel at some time in our lives; and that is the
+      kind of indolence in which our brook faithfully encouraged us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'T is an age in which such encouragement is greatly needed. We have fallen
+      so much into the habit of being always busy that we know not how nor when
+      to break it off with firmness. Our business tags after us into the midst
+      of our pleasures, and we are ill at ease beyond reach of the telegraph and
+      the daily newspaper. We agitate ourselves amazingly about a multitude of
+      affairs,&mdash;the politics of Europe, the state of the weather all around
+      the globe, the marriages and festivities of very rich people, and the
+      latest novelties in crime, none of which are of vital interest to us. The
+      more earnest souls among us are cultivating a vicious tendency to Summer
+      Schools, and Seaside Institutes of Philosophy, and Mountaintop Seminaries
+      of Modern Languages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We toil assiduously to cram something more into those scrap-bags of
+      knowledge which we fondly call our minds. Seldom do we rest tranquil long
+      enough to find out whether there is anything in them already that is of
+      real value,&mdash;any native feeling, any original thought, which would
+      like to come out and sun itself for a while in quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my part, I am sure that I stand more in need of a deeper sense of
+      contentment with life than of a knowledge of the Bulgarian tongue, and
+      that all the paradoxes of Hegel would not do me so much good as one hour
+      of vital sympathy with the careless play of children. The Marquis du Paty
+      de l'Huitre may espouse the daughter and heiress of the Honourable James
+      Bulger with all imaginable pomp, if he will. CA NE M'INTRIGUE POINT DU
+      TOUT. I would rather stretch myself out on the grass and watch yonder pair
+      of kingbirds carrying luscious flies to their young ones in the nest, or
+      chasing away the marauding crow with shrill cries of anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a pretty battle it is, and in a good cause, too! Waste no pity on
+      that big black ruffian. He is a villain and a thief, an egg-stealer, an
+      ogre, a devourer of unfledged innocents. The kingbirds are not afraid of
+      him, knowing that he is a coward at heart. They fly upon him, now from
+      below, now from above. They buffet him from one side and from the other.
+      They circle round him like a pair of swift gunboats round an antiquated
+      man-of-war. They even perch upon his back and dash their beaks into his
+      neck and pluck feathers from his piratical plumage. At last his lumbering
+      flight has carried him far enough away, and the brave little defenders fly
+      back to the nest, poising above it on quivering wings for a moment, then
+      dipping down swiftly in pursuit of some passing insect. The war is over.
+      Courage has had its turn. Now tenderness comes into play. The young birds,
+      all ignorant of the passing danger, but always conscious of an insatiable
+      hunger, are uttering loud remonstrances and plaintive demands for food.
+      Domestic life begins again, and they that sow not, neither gather into
+      barns, are fed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do you suppose that this wondrous stage of earth was set, and all the
+      myriad actors on it taught to play their parts, without a spectator in
+      view? Do you think that there is anything better for you and me to do, now
+      and then, than to sit down quietly in a humble seat, and watch a few
+      scenes in the drama? Has it not something to say to us, and do we not
+      understand it best when we have a peaceful heart and free from dolor? That
+      is what IN-DOLENCE means, and there are no better teachers of it then the
+      light-hearted birds and untoiling flowers, commended by the wisest of all
+      masters to our consideration; nor can we find a more pleasant pedagogue to
+      lead us to their school than a small, merry brook.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this was what our chosen stream did for us. It was always luring us
+      away from an artificial life into restful companionship with nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suppose, for example, we found ourselves growing a bit dissatisfied with
+      the domestic arrangements of our little cottage, and coveting the
+      splendours of a grander establishment. An afternoon on the brook was a
+      good cure for that folly. Or suppose a day came when there was an imminent
+      prospect of many formal calls. We had an important engagement up the
+      brook; and while we kept it we could think with satisfaction of the joy of
+      our callers when they discovered that they could discharge their whole
+      duty with a piece of pasteboard. This was an altruistic pleasure. Or
+      suppose that a few friends were coming to supper, and there were no
+      flowers for the supper-table. We could easily have bought them in the
+      village. But it was far more to our liking to take the children up the
+      brook, and come back with great bunches of wild white honeysuckle and blue
+      flag, or posies of arrowheads and cardinal-flowers. Or suppose that I was
+      very unwisely and reluctantly labouring at some serious piece of literary
+      work, promised for the next number of THE SCRIBBLER'S REVIEW; and suppose
+      that in the midst of this labour the sad news came to me that the
+      fisherman had forgotten to leave any fish at our cottage that morning.
+      Should my innocent babes and my devoted wife be left to perish of
+      starvation while I continued my poetical comparison of the two Williams,
+      Shakspeare and Watson? Inhuman selfishness! Of course it was my plain duty
+      to sacrifice my inclinations, and get my fly-rod, and row away across the
+      bay, with a deceptive appearance of cheerfulness, to catch a basket of
+      trout in&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III. THE SECRETS OF INTIMACY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THERE! I came within eight letters of telling the name of the brook, a
+      thing that I am firmly resolved not to do. If it were an ordinary fishless
+      little river, or even a stream with nothing better than grass-pike and
+      sunfish in it, you should have the name and welcome. But when a brook
+      contains speckled trout, and when their presence is known to a very few
+      persons who guard the secret as the dragon guarded the golden apples of
+      the Hesperides, and when the size of the trout is large beyond the dreams
+      of hope,&mdash;well, when did you know a true angler who would willingly
+      give away the name of such a brook as that? You may find an encourager of
+      indolence in almost any stream of the South Side, and I wish you joy of
+      your brook. But if you want to catch trout in mine you must discover it
+      for yourself, or perhaps go with me some day, and solemnly swear secrecy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the way in which the freedom of the stream was conferred upon me.
+      There was a small boy in the village, the son of rich but respectable
+      parents, and an inveterate all-round sportsman, aged fourteen years, with
+      whom I had formed a close intimacy. I was telling him about the pleasure
+      of exploring the idle brook, and expressing the opinion that in bygone
+      days, (in that mythical "forty years ago" when all fishing was good),
+      there must have been trout in it. A certain look came over the boy's face.
+      He gazed at me solemnly, as if he were searching the inmost depths of my
+      character before he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Say, do you want to know something?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I assured him that an increase of knowledge was the chief aim of my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you promise you won't tell?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I expressed my readiness to be bound to silence by the most awful pledge
+      that the law would sanction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wish you may die?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I not only wished that I might die, but was perfectly certain that I would
+      die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, what's the matter with catching trout in that brook now? Do you
+      want to go with me next Saturday? I saw four or five bully ones last week,
+      and got three."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the appointed day we made the voyage, landed at the upper bridge,
+      walked around by the woodpath to the railroad embankment, and began to
+      worm our way down through the tangled wilderness. Fly-fishing, of course,
+      was out of the question. The only possible method of angling was to let
+      the line, baited with a juicy "garden hackle," drift down the current as
+      far as possible before you, under the alder-branches and the cat-briers,
+      into the holes and corners of the stream. Then, if there came a gentle tug
+      on the rod, you must strike, to one side or the other, as the branches
+      might allow, and trust wholly to luck for a chance to play the fish. Many
+      a trout we lost that day,&mdash;the largest ones, of course,&mdash;and
+      many a hook was embedded in a sunken log, or hopelessly entwined among the
+      boughs overhead. But when we came out at the bridge, very wet and
+      disheveled, we had seven pretty fish, the heaviest about half a pound. The
+      Fairy Dell yielded a brace of smaller ones, and altogether we were
+      reasonably happy as we took up the oars and pushed out upon the open
+      stream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if there were fish above, why should there not be fish below? It was
+      about sunset, the angler's golden hour. We were already committed to the
+      crime of being late for supper. It would add little to our guilt and much
+      to our pleasure to drift slowly down the middle of the brook and cast the
+      artful fly in the deeper corners on either shore. So I took off the vulgar
+      bait-hook and put on a delicate leader with a Queen of the Water for a
+      tail-fly and a Yellow Sally for a dropper,&mdash;innocent little
+      confections of feathers and tinsel, dressed on the tiniest hooks, and
+      calculated to tempt the appetite or the curiosity of the most capricious
+      trout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time the whipping of the water produced no result, and it
+      seemed as if the dainty style of angling were destined to prove less
+      profitable than plain fishing with a worm. But presently we came to an
+      elbow of the brook, just above the estuary, where there was quite a
+      stretch of clear water along the lower side, with two half-sunken logs
+      sticking out from the bank, against which the current had drifted a broad
+      raft of weeds. I made a long cast, and sent the tail-fly close to the edge
+      of the weeds. There was a swelling ripple on the surface of the water, and
+      a noble fish darted from under the logs, dashed at the fly, missed it, and
+      whirled back to his shelter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gee!" said the boy, "that was a whacker! He made a wake like a
+      steamboat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a moment for serious thought. What was best to be done with that
+      fish? Leave him to settle down for the night and come back after him
+      another day? Or try another cast for him at once? A fish on Saturday
+      evening is worth two on Monday morning. I changed the Queen of the Water
+      for a Royal Coachman tied on a number fourteen hook,&mdash;white wings,
+      peacock body with a belt of crimson silk,&mdash;and sent it out again, a
+      foot farther up the stream and a shade closer to the weeds. As it settled
+      on the water, there was a flash of gold from the shadow beneath the logs,
+      and a quick turn of the wrist made the tiny hook fast in the fish. He
+      fought wildly to get back to the shelter of his logs, but the four ounce
+      rod had spring enough in it to hold him firmly away from that dangerous
+      retreat. Then he splurged up and down the open water, and made fierce
+      dashes among the grassy shallows, and seemed about to escape a dozen
+      times. But at last his force was played out; he came slowly towards the
+      boat, turning on his side, and I netted him in my hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bully for us;" said the boy, "we got him! What a dandy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was indeed one of the handsomest fish that I have ever taken on the
+      South Side,&mdash;just short of two pounds and a quarter,&mdash;small
+      head, broad tail, and well-rounded sides coloured with orange and blue and
+      gold and red. A pair of the same kind, one weighing two pounds and the
+      other a pound and three quarters, were taken by careful fishing down the
+      lower end of the pool, and then we rowed home through the dusk, pleasantly
+      convinced that there is no virtue more certainly rewarded than the
+      patience of anglers, and entirely willing to put up with a cold supper and
+      a mild reproof for the sake of sport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course we could not resist the temptation to show those fish to the
+      neighbours. But, equally of course, we evaded the request to give precise
+      information as to the precise place where they were caught. Indeed, I fear
+      that there must have been something confused in our description of where
+      we had been on that afternoon. Our carefully selected language may have
+      been open to misunderstanding. At all events, the next day, which was the
+      Sabbath, there was a row of eager but unprincipled anglers sitting on a
+      bridge OVER ANOTHER STREAM, and fishing for trout with worms and large
+      expectations, but without visible results.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy and I agreed that if this did not teach a good moral lesson it was
+      not our fault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I obtained the boy's consent to admit the partner of my life's joys and
+      two of our children to the secret of the brook, and thereafter, when we
+      visited it, we took the fly-rod with us. If by chance another boat passed
+      us in the estuary, we were never fishing, but only gathering flowers, or
+      going for a picnic, or taking photographs. But when the uninitiated ones
+      had passed by, we would get out the rod again, and try a few more casts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day in particular I remember, when Graygown and little Teddy were my
+      companions. We really had no hopes of angling, for the hour was mid-noon,
+      and the day was warm and still. But suddenly the trout, by one of those
+      unaccountable freaks which make their disposition so interesting and
+      attractive, began to rise all about us in a bend of the stream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look!" said Teddy; "wherever you see one of those big smiles on the
+      water, I believe there's a fish!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately the rod was at hand. Graygown and Teddy managed the boat and
+      the landing-net with consummate skill. We landed no less than a dozen
+      beautiful fish at that most unlikely hour and then solemnly shook hands
+      all around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a peculiar pleasure in doing a thing like this, catching trout in
+      a place where nobody thinks of looking for them, and at an hour when
+      everybody believes they cannot be caught. It is more fun to take one good
+      fish out of an old, fished-out stream, near at hand to the village, than
+      to fill a basket from some far-famed and well-stocked water. It is the
+      unexpected touch that tickles our sense of pleasure. While life lasts, we
+      are always hoping for it and expecting it. There is no country so
+      civilized, no existence so humdrum, that there is not room enough in it
+      somewhere for a lazy, idle brook, an encourager of indolence, with hope of
+      happy surprises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE OPEN FIRE
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "It is a vulgar notion that a fire is only for heat.  A
+     chief value of it is, however, to look at.  And it is never
+     twice the same."
+
+     &mdash;CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER: Backlog Studies.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I. LIGHTING UP
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Man is the animal that has made friends with the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the other creatures, in their natural state, are afraid of it. They
+      look upon it with wonder and dismay. It fascinates them, sometimes, with
+      its glittering eyes in the night. The squirrels and the hares come
+      pattering softly towards it through the underbrush around the new camp.
+      The fascinated deer stares into the blaze of the jack-light while the
+      hunter's canoe creeps through the lily-pads. But the charm that masters
+      them is one of dread, not of love. It is the witchcraft of the serpent's
+      lambent look. When they know what it means, when the heat of the fire
+      touches them, or even when its smell comes clearly to their most delicate
+      sense, they recognize it as their enemy, the Wild Huntsman whose red
+      hounds can follow, follow for days without wearying, growing stronger and
+      more furious with every turn of the chase. Let but a trail of smoke drift
+      down the wind across the forest, and all the game for miles and miles will
+      catch the signal for fear and flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many of the animals have learned how to make houses for themselves. The
+      CABANE of the beaver is a wonder of neatness and comfort, much preferable
+      to the wigwam of his Indian hunter. The muskrat knows how thick and high
+      to build the dome of his waterside cottage, in order to protect himself
+      against the frost of the coming winter and the floods of the following
+      spring. The woodchuck's house has two or three doors; and the squirrel's
+      dwelling is provided with a good bed and a convenient storehouse for nuts
+      and acorns. The sportive otters have a toboggan slide in front of their
+      residence; and the moose in winter make a "yard," where they can take
+      exercise comfortably and find shelter for sleep. But there is one thing
+      lacking in all these various dwellings,&mdash;a fireplace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire and to live with it.
+      The reason? Because he alone has learned how to put it out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true that two of his humbler friends have been converted to
+      fire-worship. The dog and the cat, being half-humanized, have begun to
+      love the fire. I suppose that a cat seldom comes so near to feeling a true
+      sense of affection as when she has finished her saucer of bread and milk,
+      and stretched herself luxuriously underneath the kitchen stove, while her
+      faithful mistress washes up the dishes. As for a dog, I am sure that his
+      admiring love for his master is never greater than when they come in
+      together from the hunt, wet and tired, and the man gathers a pile of wood
+      in front of the tent, touches it with a tiny magic wand, and suddenly the
+      clear, consoling flame springs up, saying cheerfully, "Here we are, at
+      home in the forest; come into the warmth; rest, and eat, and sleep." When
+      the weary, shivering dog sees this miracle, he knows that his master is a
+      great man and a lord of things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After all, that is the only real open fire. Wood is the fuel for it.
+      Out-of-doors is the place for it. A furnace is an underground prison for a
+      toiling slave. A stove is a cage for a tame bird. Even a broad hearthstone
+      and a pair of glittering andirons&mdash;the best ornament of a room&mdash;must
+      be accepted as an imitation of the real thing. The veritable open fire is
+      built in the open, with the whole earth for a fireplace and the sky for a
+      chimney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To start a fire in the open is by no means as easy as it looks. It is one
+      of those simple tricks that every one thinks he can perform until he tries
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To do it without trying,&mdash;accidentally and unwillingly,&mdash;that,
+      of course, is a thing for which any fool is fit. You knock out the ashes
+      from your pipe on a fallen log; you toss the end of a match into a patch
+      of grass, green on top, but dry as punk underneath; you scatter the dead
+      brands of an old fire among the moss,&mdash;a conflagration is under way
+      before you know it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fire in the woods is one thing; a comfort and a joy. Fire in the woods
+      is another thing; a terror, an uncontrollable fury, a burning shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the lighting up of a proper fire, kindly, approachable, serviceable,
+      docile, is a work of intelligence. If, perhaps, you have to do it in the
+      rain, with a single match, it requires no little art and skill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is plenty of wood everywhere, but not a bit to burn. The fallen
+      trees are waterlogged. The dead leaves are as damp as grief. The charred
+      sticks that you find in an old fireplace are absolutely incombustible. Do
+      not trust the handful of withered twigs and branches that you gather from
+      the spruce-trees. They seem dry, but they are little better for your
+      purpose than so much asbestos. You make a pile of them in some apparently
+      suitable hollow, and lay a few larger sticks on top. Then you hastily
+      scratch your solitary match on the seat of your trousers and thrust it
+      into the pile of twigs. What happens? The wind whirls around in your
+      stupid little hollow, and the blue flame of the sulphur spirts and
+      sputters for an instant, and then goes out. Or perhaps there is a moment
+      of stillness; the match flares up bravely; the nearest twigs catch fire,
+      crackling and sparkling; you hurriedly lay on more sticks; but the fire
+      deliberately dodges them, creeps to the corner of the pile where the twigs
+      are fewest and dampest, snaps feebly a few times, and expires in smoke.
+      Now where are you? How far is it to the nearest match?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you are wise, you will always make your fire before you light it. Time
+      is never saved by doing a thing badly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II. THE CAMP-FIRE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the making of fires there is as much difference as in the building of
+      houses. Everything depends upon the purpose that you have in view. There
+      is the camp-fire, and the cooking-fire, and the smudge-fire, and the
+      little friendship-fire,&mdash;not to speak of other minor varieties. Each
+      of these has its own proper style of architecture, and to mix them is
+      false art and poor economy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The object of the camp-fire is to give heat, and incidentally light, to
+      your tent or shanty. You can hardly build this kind of a fire unless you
+      have a good axe and know how to chop. For the first thing that you need is
+      a solid backlog, the thicker the better, to hold the heat and reflect it
+      into the tent. This log must not be too dry, or it will burn out quickly.
+      Neither must it be too damp, else it will smoulder and discourage the
+      fire. The best wood for it is the body of a yellow birch, and, next to
+      that, a green balsam. It should be five or six feet long, and at least two
+      and a half feet in diameter. If you cannot find a tree thick enough, cut
+      two or three lengths of a smaller one; lay the thickest log on the ground
+      first, about ten or twelve feet in front of the tent; drive two strong
+      stakes behind it, slanting a little backward; and lay the other logs on
+      top of the first, resting against the stakes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now you are ready for the hand-chunks, or andirons. These are shorter
+      sticks of wood, eight or ten inches thick, laid at right angles to the
+      backlog, four or five feet apart. Across these you are to build up the
+      firewood proper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Use a dry spruce-tree, not one that has fallen, but one that is dead and
+      still standing, if you want a lively, snapping fire. Use a hard maple or a
+      hickory if you want a fire that will burn steadily and make few sparks.
+      But if you like a fire to blaze up at first with a splendid flame, and
+      then burn on with an enduring heat far into the night, a young white birch
+      with the bark on is the tree to choose. Six or eight round sticks of this
+      laid across the hand-chunks, with perhaps a few quarterings of a larger
+      tree, will make a glorious fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before you put these on, you must be ready to light up. A few
+      splinters of dry spruce or pine or balsam, stood endwise against the
+      backlog, or, better still, piled up in a pyramid between the hand-chunks;
+      a few strips of birch-bark; and one good match,&mdash;these are all that
+      you want. But be sure that your match is a good one. It is better to see
+      to this before you go into the brush. Your comfort, even your life, may
+      depend on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "AVEC CES ALLUMETTES-LA," said my guide at LAC ST. JEAN one day, as he
+      vainly tried to light his pipe with a box of parlour matches from the
+      hotel,&mdash;AVEC CES GNOGNOTTES D'ALLUMETTES ON POURRA MOURIR AU BOIS!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the woods, the old-fashioned brimstone match of our grandfathers&mdash;the
+      match with a brown head and a stout stick and a dreadful smell&mdash;is
+      the best. But if you have only one, do not trust even that to light your
+      fire directly. Use it first to touch off a roll of birch-bark which you
+      hold in your hand. Then, when the bark is well alight, crinkling and
+      curling, push it under the heap of kindlings, give the flame time to take
+      a good hold, and lay your wood over it, a stick at a time, until the whole
+      pile is blazing. Now your fire is started. Your friendly little red-haired
+      gnome is ready to serve you through the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He will dry your clothes if you are wet. He will cheer you up if you are
+      despondent. He will diffuse an air of sociability through the camp, and
+      draw the men together in a half circle for storytelling and jokes and
+      singing. He will hold a flambeau for you while you spread your blankets on
+      the boughs and dress for bed. He will keep you warm while you sleep,&mdash;at
+      least till about three o'clock in the morning, when you dream that you are
+      out sleighing in your pajamas, and wake up with a shiver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "HOLA, FERDINAND, FRANCOIS!" you call out from your bed, pulling the
+      blankets over your ears; "RAMANCHEZ LE FEU, S'IL VOUS PLAIT. C'EST UN
+      FREITE DE CHIEN."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III. THE COOKING-FIRE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Of course such a fire as I have been describing can be used for cooking,
+      when it has burned down a little, and there is a bed of hot embers in
+      front of the backlog. But a correct kitchen fire should be constructed
+      after another fashion. What you want now is not blaze, but heat, and that
+      not diffused, but concentrated. You must be able to get close to your fire
+      without burning your boots or scorching your face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you have time and the material, make a fireplace of big stones. But not
+      of granite, for that will split with the heat, and perhaps fly in your
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you are in a hurry and there are no suitable stones at hand, lay two
+      good logs nearly parallel with each other, a foot or so apart, and build
+      your fire between them. For a cooking-fire, use split wood in short
+      sticks. Let the first supply burn to glowing coals before you begin. A
+      frying-pan that is lukewarm one minute and red-hot the next is the
+      abomination of desolation. If you want black toast, have it made before a
+      fresh, sputtering, blazing heap of wood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fires, as in men, an excess of energy is a lack of usefulness. The best
+      work is done without many sparks. Just enough is the right kind of a fire
+      and a feast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To know how to cook is not a very elegant accomplishment. Yet there are
+      times and seasons when it seems to come in better than familiarity with
+      the dead languages, or much skill upon the lute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You cannot always rely on your guides for a tasteful preparation of food.
+      Many of them are ignorant of the difference between frying and broiling,
+      and their notion of boiling a potato or a fish is to reduce it to a pulp.
+      Now and then you find a man who has a natural inclination to the culinary
+      art, and who does very well within familiar limits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Edouard, the Montaignais Indian who cooked for my friends H. E. G. and
+      C. S. D. last summer on the STE. MARGUERITE EN BAS, was such a man. But
+      Edouard could not read, and the only way he could tell the nature of the
+      canned provisions was by the pictures on the cans. If the picture was
+      strange to him, there was no guessing what he would do with the contents
+      of the can. He was capable of roasting strawberries, and serving green
+      peas cold for dessert. One day a can of mullagatawny soup and a can of
+      apricots were handed out to him simultaneously and without explanations.
+      Edouard solved the problem by opening both cans and cooking them together.
+      We had a new soup that day, MULLAGATAWNY AUX APRICOTS. It was not as bad
+      as it sounds. It tasted somewhat like chutney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The real reason why food that is cooked over an open fire tastes so good
+      to us is because we are really hungry when we get it. The man who puts up
+      provisions for camp has a great advantage over the dealers who must
+      satisfy the pampered appetite of people in houses. I never can get any
+      bacon in New York like that which I buy at a little shop in Quebec to take
+      into the woods. If I ever set up in the grocery business, I shall try to
+      get a good trade among anglers. It will be easy to please my customers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reputation that trout enjoy as a food-fish is partly due to the fact
+      that they are usually cooked over an open fire. In the city they never
+      taste as good. It is not merely a difference in freshness. It is a change
+      in the sauce. If the truth must be told, even by an angler, there are at
+      least five salt-water fish which are better than trout,&mdash;to eat.
+      There is none better to catch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV. THE SMUDGE-FIRE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      But enough of the cooking-fire. Let us turn now to the subject of the
+      smudge, known in Lower Canada as LA BOUCANE. The smudge owes its existence
+      to the pungent mosquito, the sanguinary black-fly, and the peppery midge,&mdash;LE
+      MARINGOUIN, LA MOUSTIQUE, ET LE BRULOT. To what it owes its English name I
+      do not know; but its French name means simply a thick, nauseating,
+      intolerable smoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smudge is called into being for the express purpose of creating a
+      smoke of this kind, which is as disagreeable to the mosquito, the
+      black-fly, and the midge as it is to the man whom they are devouring. But
+      the man survives the smoke, while the insects succumb to it, being
+      destroyed or driven away. Therefore the smudge, dark and bitter in itself,
+      frequently becomes, like adversity, sweet in its uses. It must be regarded
+      as a form of fire with which man has made friends under the pressure of a
+      cruel necessity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would seem as if it ought to be the simplest affair in the world to
+      light up a smudge. And so it is&mdash;if you are not trying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An attempt to produce almost any other kind of a fire will bring forth
+      smoke abundantly. But when you deliberately undertake to create a smudge,
+      flames break from the wettest timber, and green moss blazes with a furious
+      heat. You hastily gather handfuls of seemingly incombustible material and
+      throw it on the fire, but the conflagration increases. Grass and green
+      leaves hesitate for an instant and then flash up like tinder. The more you
+      put on, the more your smudge rebels against its proper task of smudging.
+      It makes a pleasant warmth, to encourage the black-flies; and bright light
+      to attract and cheer the mosquitoes. Your effort is a brilliant failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The proper way to make a smudge is this. Begin with a very little, lowly
+      fire. Let it be bright, but not ambitious. Don't try to make a smoke yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then gather a good supply of stuff which seems likely to suppress fire
+      without smothering it. Moss of a certain kind will do, but not the soft,
+      feathery moss that grows so deep among the spruce-trees. Half-decayed wood
+      is good; spongy, moist, unpleasant stuff, a vegetable wet blanket. The
+      bark of dead evergreen trees, hemlock, spruce, or balsam, is better still.
+      Gather a plentiful store of it. But don't try to make a smoke yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let your fire burn a while longer; cheer it up a little. Get some clear,
+      resolute, unquenchable coals aglow in the heart of it. Don't try to make a
+      smoke yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now pile on your smouldering fuel. Fan it with your hat. Kneel down and
+      blow it, and in ten minutes you will have a smoke that will make you wish
+      you had never been born.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is the proper way to make a smudge. But the easiest way is to ask
+      your guide to make it for you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If he makes it in an old iron pot, so much the better, for then you can
+      move it around to the windward when the breeze veers, and carry it into
+      your tent without risk of setting everything on fire, and even take it
+      with you in the canoe while you are fishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of the pleasantest pictures in the angler's gallery of remembrance
+      are framed in the smoke that rises from a smudge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With my eyes shut, I can call up a vision of eight birch-bark canoes
+      floating side by side on Moosehead Lake, on a fair June morning, fifteen
+      years ago. They are anchored off Green Island, riding easily on the long,
+      gentle waves. In the stern of each canoe there is a guide with a
+      long-handled net; in the bow, an angler with a light fly-rod; in the
+      middle, a smudge-kettle, smoking steadily. In the air to the windward of
+      the little fleet hovers a swarm of flies drifting down on the shore
+      breeze, with bloody purpose in their breasts, but baffled by the
+      protecting smoke. In the water to the leeward plays a school of speckled
+      trout, feeding on the minnows that hang around the sunken ledges of rock.
+      As a larger wave than usual passes over the ledges, it lifts the fish up,
+      and you can see the big fellows, three, and four, and even five pounds
+      apiece, poising themselves in the clear brown water. A long cast will send
+      the fly over one of them. Let it sink a foot. Draw it up with a fluttering
+      motion. Now the fish sees it, and turns to catch it. There is a yellow
+      gleam in the depth, a sudden swirl on the surface; you strike sharply, and
+      the trout is matching his strength against the spring of your four ounces
+      of split bamboo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You can guess at his size, as he breaks water, by the breadth of his tail:
+      a pound of weight to an inch of tail,&mdash;that is the traditional
+      measure, and it usually comes pretty close to the mark, at least in the
+      case of large fish. But it is never safe to record the weight until the
+      trout is in the canoe. As the Canadian hunters say, "Sell not the skin of
+      the bear while he carries it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the breeze that blows over Green Island drops away, and the smoke of
+      the eight smudge-kettles falls like a thick curtain. The canoes, the dark
+      shores of Norcross Point, the twin peaks of Spencer Mountain, the dim blue
+      summit of Katahdin, the dazzling sapphire sky, the flocks of fleece-white
+      clouds shepherded on high by the western wind, all have vanished. With
+      closed eyes I see another vision, still framed in smoke,&mdash;a vision of
+      yesterday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a wild river flowing into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the COTE
+      NORD, far down towards Labrador. There is a long, narrow, swift pool
+      between two parallel ridges of rock. Over the ridge on the right pours a
+      cataract of pale yellow foam. At the bottom of the pool, the water slides
+      down into a furious rapid, and dashes straight through an impassable gorge
+      half a mile to the sea. The pool is full of salmon, leaping merrily in
+      their delight at coming into their native stream. The air is full of
+      black-flies, rejoicing in the warmth of the July sun. On a slippery point
+      of rock, below the fall, are two anglers, tempting the fish and enduring
+      the flies. Behind them is an old HABITANT raising a mighty column of
+      smoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the cloudy pillar which keeps back the Egyptian host, you see the
+      waving of a long rod. A silver-gray fly with a barbed tail darts out
+      across the pool, swings around with the current, well under water, and
+      slowly works past the big rock in the centre, just at the head of the
+      rapid. Almost past it, but not quite: for suddenly the fly disappears; the
+      line begins to run out; the reel sings sharp and shrill; a salmon is
+      hooked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how well is he hooked? That is the question. This is no easy pool to
+      play a fish in. There is no chance to jump into a canoe and drop below
+      him, and get the current to help you in drowning him. You cannot follow
+      him along the shore. You cannot even lead him into quiet water, where the
+      gaffer can creep near to him unseen and drag him in with a quick stroke.
+      You must fight your fish to a finish, and all the advantages are on his
+      side. The current is terribly strong. If he makes up his mind to go
+      downstream to the sea, the only thing you can do is to hold him by main
+      force; and then it is ten to one that the hook tears out or the leader
+      breaks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not in human nature for one man to watch another handling a fish in
+      such a place without giving advice. "Keep the tip of your rod up. Don't
+      let your reel overrun. Stir him up a little, he 's sulking. Don't let him
+      'jig,' or you'll lose him. You 're playing him too hard. There, he 's
+      going to jump again. Drop your tip. Stop him, quick! he 's going down the
+      rapid!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course the man who is playing the salmon does not like this. If he is
+      quick-tempered, sooner or later he tells his counsellor to shut up. But if
+      he is a gentle, early-Christian kind of a man, wise as a serpent and
+      harmless as a dove, he follows the advice that is given to him, promptly
+      and exactly. Then, when it is all ended, and he has seen the big fish,
+      with the line over his shoulder, poised for an instant on the crest of the
+      first billow of the rapid, and has felt the leader stretch and give and
+      SNAP!&mdash;then he can have the satisfaction, while he reels in his slack
+      line, of saying to his friend, "Well, old man, I did everything just as
+      you told me. But I think if I had pushed that fish a little harder at the
+      beginning, AS I WANTED TO, I might have saved him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But really, of course, the chances were all against it. In such a pool,
+      most of the larger fish get away. Their weight gives them a tremendous
+      pull. The fish that are stopped from going into the rapid, and dragged
+      back from the curling wave, are usually the smaller ones. Here they are,&mdash;twelve
+      pounds, eight pounds, six pounds, five pounds and a half, FOUR POUNDS! Is
+      not this the smallest salmon that you ever saw? Not a grilse, you
+      understand, but a real salmon, of brightest silver, hall-marked with St.
+      Andrew's cross.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now let us sit down for a moment and watch the fish trying to leap up the
+      falls. There is a clear jump of about ten feet, and above that an
+      apparently impossible climb of ten feet more up a ladder of twisting foam.
+      A salmon darts from the boiling water at the bottom of the fall like an
+      arrow from a bow. He rises in a beautiful curve, fins laid close to his
+      body and tail quivering; but he has miscalculated his distance. He is on
+      the downward curve when the water strikes him and tumbles him back. A bold
+      little fish, not more than eighteen inches long, makes a jump at the side
+      of the fall, where the water is thin, and is rolled over and over in the
+      spray. A larger salmon rises close beside us with a tremendous rush, bumps
+      his nose against a jutting rock, and flops back into the pool. Now comes a
+      fish who has made his calculations exactly. He leaves the pool about eight
+      feet from the foot of the fall, rises swiftly, spreads his fins, and
+      curves his tail as if he were flying, strikes the water where it is
+      thickest just below the brink, holds on desperately, and drives himself,
+      with one last wriggle, through the bending stream, over the edge, and up
+      the first step of the foaming stairway. He has obeyed the strongest
+      instinct of his nature, and gone up to make love in the highest fresh
+      water that he can reach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smoke of the smudge-fire is sharp and tearful, but a man can learn to
+      endure a good deal of it when he can look through its rings at such scenes
+      as these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      V. THE LITTLE FRIENDSHIP-FIRE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There are times and seasons when the angler has no need of any of the
+      three fires of which we have been talking. He sleeps in a house. His
+      breakfast and dinner are cooked for him in a kitchen. He is in no great
+      danger from black-flies or mosquitoes. All he needs now, as he sets out to
+      spend a day on the Neversink, or the Willowemoc, or the Shepaug, or the
+      Swiftwater, is a good lunch in his pocket, and a little friendship-fire to
+      burn pleasantly beside him while he eats his frugal fare and prolongs his
+      noonday rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This form of fire does less work than any other in the world. Yet it is
+      far from being useless; and I, for one, should be sorry to live without
+      it. Its only use is to make a visible centre of interest where there are
+      two or three anglers eating their lunch together, or to supply a kind of
+      companionship to a lone fisherman. It is kindled and burns for no other
+      purpose than to give you the sense of being at home and at ease. Why the
+      fire should do this, I cannot tell, but it does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You may build your friendship-fire in almost any way that pleases you; but
+      this is the way in which you shall build it best. You have no axe, of
+      course, so you must look about for the driest sticks that you can find. Do
+      not seek them close beside the stream, for there they are likely to be
+      water-soaked; but go back into the woods a bit and gather a good armful of
+      fuel. Then break it, if you can, into lengths of about two feet, and
+      construct your fire in the following fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lay two sticks parallel, and put between them a pile of dried grass, dead
+      leaves, small twigs, and the paper in which your lunch was wrapped. Then
+      lay two other sticks crosswise on top of your first pair. Strike your
+      match and touch your kindlings. As the fire catches, lay on other pairs of
+      sticks, each pair crosswise to the pair that is below it, until you have a
+      pyramid of flame. This is "a Micmac fire" such as the Indians make in the
+      woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now you can pull off your wading-boots and warm your feet at the blaze.
+      You can toast your bread if you like. You can even make shift to broil one
+      of your trout, fastened on the end of a birch twig if you have a fancy
+      that way. When your hunger is satisfied, you shake out the crumbs for the
+      birds and the squirrels, pick up a stick with a coal at the end to light
+      your pipe, put some more wood on your fire, and settle down for an hour's
+      reading if you have a book in your pocket, or for a good talk if you have
+      a comrade with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stream of time flows swift and smooth, by such a fire as this. The
+      moments slip past unheeded; the sun sinks down his western arch; the
+      shadows begin to fall across the brook; it is time to move on for the
+      afternoon fishing. The fire has almost burned out. But do not trust it too
+      much. Throw some sand over it, or bring a hatful of water from the brook
+      to pour on it, until you are sure that the last glowing ember is
+      extinguished, and nothing but the black coals and the charred ends of the
+      sticks are left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even the little friendship-fire must keep the law of the bush. All lights
+      out when their purpose is fulfilled!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VI. ALTARS OF REMEMBRANCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It is a question that we have often debated, in the informal meetings of
+      our Petrine Club: Which is pleasanter,&mdash;to fish an old stream, or a
+      new one?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger members are all for the "fresh woods and pastures new." They
+      speak of the delight of turning off from the high-road into some
+      faintly-marked trail; following it blindly through the forest, not knowing
+      how far you have to go; hearing the voice of waters sounding through the
+      woodland; leaving the path impatiently and striking straight across the
+      underbrush; scrambling down a steep bank, pushing through a thicket of
+      alders, and coming out suddenly, face to face with a beautiful, strange
+      brook. It reminds you, of course, of some old friend. It is a little like
+      the Beaverkill, or the Ausable, or the Gale River. And yet it is
+      different. Every stream has its own character and disposition. Your new
+      acquaintance invites you to a day of discoveries. If the water is high,
+      you will follow it down, and have easy fishing. If the water is low, you
+      will go upstream, and fish "fine and far-off." Every turn in the avenue
+      which the little river has made for you opens up a new view,&mdash;a rocky
+      gorge where the deep pools are divided by white-footed falls; a lofty
+      forest where the shadows are deep and the trees arch overhead; a flat,
+      sunny stretch where the stream is spread out, and pebbly islands divide
+      the channels, and the big fish are lurking at the sides in the sheltered
+      corners under the bushes. From scene to scene you follow on, delighted and
+      expectant, until the night suddenly drops its veil, and then you will be
+      lucky if you can find your way home in the dark!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, it is all very good, this exploration of new streams. But, for my
+      part, I like still better to go back to a familiar little river, and fish
+      or dream along the banks where I have dreamed and fished before. I know
+      every bend and curve: the sharp turn where the water runs under the roots
+      of the old hemlock-tree; the snaky glen, where the alders stretch their
+      arms far out across the stream; the meadow reach, where the trout are fat
+      and silvery, and will only rise about sunrise or sundown, unless the day
+      is cloudy; the Naiad's Elbow, where the brook rounds itself, smooth and
+      dimpled, to embrace a cluster of pink laurel-bushes. All these I know;
+      yes, and almost every current and eddy and backwater I know long before I
+      come to it. I remember where I caught the big trout the first year I came
+      to the stream; and where I lost a bigger one. I remember the pool where
+      there were plenty of good fish last year, and wonder whether they are
+      there now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Better things than these I remember: the companions with whom I have
+      followed the stream in days long past; the rendezvous with a comrade at
+      the place where the rustic bridge crosses the brook; the hours of sweet
+      converse beside the friendship-fire; the meeting at twilight with my lady
+      Graygown and the children, who have come down by the wood-road to walk
+      home with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely it is pleasant to follow an old stream. Flowers grow along its
+      banks which are not to be found anywhere else in the wide world. "There is
+      rosemary, that 's for remembrance; and there is pansies, that 's for
+      thoughts!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One May evening, a couple of years since, I was angling in the Swiftwater,
+      and came upon Joseph Jefferson, stretched out on a large rock in
+      midstream, and casting the fly down a long pool. He had passed the
+      threescore years and ten, but he was as eager and as happy as a boy in his
+      fishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You here!" I cried. "What good fortune brought you into these waters?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," he answered, "I fished this brook forty-five years ago. It was in
+      the Paradise Valley that I first thought of Rip Van Winkle. I wanted to
+      come back again for the sake of old times."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what has all this to do with an open fire? I will tell you. It is at
+      the places along the stream, where the little flames of love and
+      friendship have been kindled in bygone days, that the past returns most
+      vividly. These are the altars of remembrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is strange how long a small fire will leave its mark. The charred
+      sticks, the black coals, do not decay easily. If they lie well up the
+      hank, out of reach of the spring floods, they will stay there for years.
+      If you have chanced to build a rough fireplace of stones from the brook,
+      it seems almost as if it would last forever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a mossy knoll beneath a great butternut-tree on the Swiftwater
+      where such a fireplace was built four years ago; and whenever I come to
+      that place now I lay the rod aside, and sit down for a little while by the
+      fast-flowing water, and remember.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is what I see: A man wading up the stream, with a creel over his
+      shoulder, and perhaps a dozen trout in it; two little lads in gray
+      corduroys running down the path through the woods to meet him, one
+      carrying a frying-pan and a kettle, the other with a basket of lunch on
+      his arm. Then I see the bright flames leaping up in the fireplace, and
+      hear the trout sizzling in the pan, and smell the appetizing odour. Now I
+      see the lads coming back across the foot-bridge that spans the stream,
+      with a bottle of milk from the nearest farmhouse. They are laughing and
+      teetering as they balance along the single plank. Now the table is spread
+      on the moss. How good the lunch tastes! Never were there such pink-fleshed
+      trout, such crisp and savoury slices of broiled bacon. Douglas, (the
+      beloved doll that the younger lad shamefacedly brings out from the pocket
+      of his jacket,) must certainly have some of it. And after the lunch is
+      finished, and the bird's portion has been scattered on the moss, we creep
+      carefully on our hands and knees to the edge of the brook, and look over
+      the bank at the big trout that is poising himself in the amber water. We
+      have tried a dozen times to catch him, but never succeeded. The next time,
+      perhaps&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, the fireplace is still standing. The butternut-tree spreads its
+      broad branches above the stream. The violets and the bishop's-caps and the
+      wild anemones are sprinkled over the banks. The yellow-throat and the
+      water-thrush and the vireos still sing the same tunes in the thicket. And
+      the elder of the two lads often comes back with me to that pleasant place
+      and shares my fisherman's luck beside the Swiftwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the younger lad?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, my little Barney, you have gone to follow a new stream,&mdash;clear as
+      crystal,&mdash;flowing through fields of wonderful flowers that never
+      fade. It is a strange river to Teddy and me; strange and very far away.
+      Some day we shall see it with you; and you will teach us the names of
+      those blossoms that do not wither. But till then, little Barney, the other
+      lad and I will follow the old stream that flows by the woodland fireplace,&mdash;your
+      altar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rue grows here. Yes, there is plenty of rue. But there is also rosemary,
+      that 's for remembrance! And close beside it I see a little heart's-ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A SLUMBER SONG FOR THE FISHERMAN'S CHILD
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          Furl your sail, my little boatie;
+              Here 's the haven, still and deep,
+          Where the dreaming tides, in-streaming,
+                   Up the channel creep.
+          See, the sunset breeze is dying;
+          Hark, the plover, landward flying,
+          Softly down the twilight crying;
+              Come to anchor, little boatie,
+                  In the port of Sleep.
+
+          Far away, my little boatie,
+              Roaring waves are white with foam;
+          Ships are striving, onward driving,
+                  Day and night they roam.
+          Father 's at the deep-sea trawling,
+          In the darkness, rowing, hauling,
+          While the hungry winds are calling,&mdash;
+             God protect him, little boatie,
+                  Bring him safely home!
+
+          Not for you, my little boatie,
+              Is the wide and weary sea;
+          You 're too slender, and too tender,
+                  You must rest with me.
+          All day long you have been straying
+          Up and down the shore and playing;
+          Come to port, make no delaying!
+              Day is over, little boatie,
+                  Night falls suddenly.
+
+          Furl your sail, my little boatie;
+              Fold your wings, my tired dove.
+          Dews are sprinkling, stars are twinkling
+                  Drowsily above.
+          Cease from sailing, cease from rowing;
+          Rock upon the dream-tide, knowing
+          Safely o'er your rest are glowing,
+              All the night, my little boatie,
+                  Harbour-lights of love.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+  <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1139 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #1139 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1139)
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+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Fisherman's Luck and Some Other Uncertain Things, by Henry Van Dyke
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+    
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
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+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+    
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fisherman's Luck, by Henry van Dyke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fisherman's Luck
+
+Author: Henry van Dyke
+
+Release Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #1139]
+Last Updated: January 15, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FISHERMAN'S LUCK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      FISHERMAN'S LUCK<br /> AND<br /> SOME OTHER UNCERTAIN THINGS
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      by Henry van Dyke
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Now I conclude that not only in Physicke, but likewise in
+     sundry more certaine arts, fortune hath great share in
+     them."
+
+     M. DE MONTAIGNE: Divers Events.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> DEDICATION TO MY LADY GRAYGOWN
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here is the basket; I bring it home to you. There are no great fish in it.
+      But perhaps there may be one or two little ones which will be to your
+      taste. And there are a few shining pebbles from the bed of the brook, and
+      ferns from the cool, green woods, and wild flowers from the places that
+      you remember. I would fain console you, if I could, for the hardship of
+      having married an angler: a man who relapses into his mania with the
+      return of every spring, and never sees a little river without wishing to
+      fish in it. But after all, we have had good times together as we have
+      followed the stream of life towards the sea. And we have passed through
+      the dark days without losing heart, because we were comrades. So let this
+      book tell you one thing that is certain. In all the life of your fisherman
+      the best piece of luck is just YOU.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> FISHERMAN'S LUCK </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE THRILLING MOMENT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> TALKABILITY </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> I. PRELUDE&mdash;ON AN OLD, FOOLISH MAXIM </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> II. THEME&mdash;ON A SMALL, USEFUL VIRTUE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> III. VARIATIONS&mdash;ON A PLEASANT PHRASE
+        FROM MONTAIGNE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> A WILD STRAWBERRY </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> LOVERS AND LANDSCAPE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> A FATAL SUCCESS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A NORWEGIAN HONEYMOON </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS? </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> A LAZY, IDLE BROOK </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> I. A CASUAL INTRODUCTION </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> II. A BETTER ACQUAINTANCE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> III. THE SECRETS OF INTIMACY </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> THE OPEN FIRE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> I. LIGHTING UP </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> II. THE CAMP-FIRE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> III. THE COOKING-FIRE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> IV. THE SMUDGE-FIRE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> V. THE LITTLE FRIENDSHIP-FIRE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> VI. ALTARS OF REMEMBRANCE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> A SLUMBER SONG FOR THE FISHERMAN'S CHILD </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      FISHERMAN'S LUCK
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      Has it ever fallen in your way to notice the quality of the greetings that
+      belong to certain occupations?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is something about these salutations in kind which is singularly
+      taking and grateful to the ear. They are as much better than an ordinary
+      "good day" or a flat "how are you?" as a folk-song of Scotland or the
+      Tyrol is better than the futile love-ditty of the drawing-room. They have
+      a spicy and rememberable flavour. They speak to the imagination and point
+      the way to treasure-trove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a touch of dignity in them, too, for all they are so free and
+      easy&mdash;the dignity of independence, the native spirit of one who takes
+      for granted that his mode of living has a right to make its own forms of
+      speech. I admire a man who does not hesitate to salute the world in the
+      dialect of his calling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How salty and stimulating, for example, is the sailorman's hail of "Ship
+      ahoy!" It is like a breeze laden with briny odours and a pleasant dash of
+      spray. The miners in some parts of Germany have a good greeting for their
+      dusky trade. They cry to one who is going down the shaft, "Gluck auf!" All
+      the perils of an underground adventure and all the joys of seeing the sun
+      again are compressed into a word. Even the trivial salutation which the
+      telephone has lately created and claimed for its peculiar use&mdash;"Hello,
+      hello"&mdash;seems to me to have a kind of fitness and fascination. It is
+      like a thoroughbred bulldog, ugly enough to be attractive. There is a
+      lively, concentrated, electric air about it. It makes courtesy wait upon
+      dispatch, and reminds us that we live in an age when it is necessary to be
+      wide awake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have often wished that every human employment might evolve its own
+      appropriate greeting. Some of them would be queer, no doubt; but at least
+      they would be an improvement on the wearisome iteration of "Good-evening"
+      and "Good-morning," and the monotonous inquiry, "How do you do?"&mdash;a
+      question so meaningless that it seldom tarries for an answer. Under the
+      new and more natural system of etiquette, when you passed the time of day
+      with a man you would know his business, and the salutations of the
+      market-place would be full of interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for my chosen pursuit of angling (which I follow with diligence when
+      not interrupted by less important concerns), I rejoice with every true
+      fisherman that it has a greeting all its own and of a most honourable
+      antiquity. There is no written record of its origin. But it is quite
+      certain that since the days after the Flood, when Deucalion
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Did first this art invent
+      Of angling, and his people taught the same,"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      two honest and good-natured anglers have never met each other by the way
+      without crying out, "What luck?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, indeed, is an epitome of the gentle art. Here is the spirit of it
+      embodied in a word and paying its respects to you with its native accent.
+      Here you see its secret charms unconsciously disclosed. The attraction of
+      angling for all the ages of man, from the cradle to the grave, lies in its
+      uncertainty. 'Tis an affair of luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No amount of preparation in the matter of rods and lines and hooks and
+      lures and nets and creels can change its essential character. No
+      excellence of skill in casting the delusive fly or adjusting the tempting
+      bait upon the hook can make the result secure. You may reduce the chances,
+      but you cannot eliminate them. There are a thousand points at which
+      fortune may intervene. The state of the weather, the height of the water,
+      the appetite of the fish, the presence or absence of other anglers&mdash;all
+      these indeterminable elements enter into the reckoning of your success.
+      There is no combination of stars in the firmament by which you can
+      forecast the piscatorial future. When you go a-fishing, you just take your
+      chances; you offer yourself as a candidate for anything that may be going;
+      you try your luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are certain days that are favourites among anglers, who regard them
+      as propitious for the sport. I know a man who believes that the fish
+      always rise better on Sunday than on any other day in the week. He
+      complains bitterly of this supposed fact, because his religious scruples
+      will not allow him to take advantage of it. He confesses that he has
+      sometimes thought seriously of joining the Seventh-Day Baptists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the Pennsylvania Dutch, in the Alleghany Mountains, I have found a
+      curious tradition that Ascension Day is the luckiest in the year for
+      fishing. On that morning the district school is apt to be thinly attended,
+      and you must be on the stream very early if you do not wish to find wet
+      footprints on the stones ahead of you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in fact, all these superstitions about fortunate days are idle and
+      presumptuous. If there were such days in the calendar, a kind and firm
+      Providence would never permit the race of man to discover them. It would
+      rob life of one of its principal attractions, and make fishing altogether
+      too easy to be interesting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fisherman's luck is so notorious that it has passed into a proverb. But
+      the fault with that familiar saying is that it is too short and too narrow
+      to cover half the variations of the angler's possible experience. For if
+      his luck should be bad, there is no portion of his anatomy, from the crown
+      of his head to the soles of his feet, that may not be thoroughly wet. But
+      if it should be good, he may receive an unearned blessing of abundance not
+      only in his basket, but also in his head and his heart, his memory and his
+      fancy. He may come home from some obscure, ill-named, lovely stream&mdash;some
+      Dry Brook, or Southwest Branch of Smith's Run&mdash;with a creel full of
+      trout, and a mind full of grateful recollections of flowers that seemed to
+      bloom for his sake, and birds that sang a new, sweet, friendly message to
+      his tired soul. He may climb down to "Tommy's Rock" below the cliffs at
+      Newport (as I have done many a day with my lady Greygown), and, all
+      unnoticed by the idle, weary promenaders in the path of fashion, haul in a
+      basketful of blackfish, and at the same time look out across the shining
+      sapphire waters and inherit a wondrous good fortune of dreams&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Have glimpses that will make him less forlorn;
+      Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
+      Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But all this, you must remember, depends upon something secret and
+      incalculable, something that we can neither command nor predict. It is an
+      affair of gift, not of wages. Fish (and the other good things which are
+      like sauce to the catching of them) cast no shadow before. Water is the
+      emblem of instability. No one can tell what he shall draw out of it until
+      he has taken in his line. Herein are found the true charm and profit of
+      angling for all persons of a pure and childlike mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Look at those two venerable gentlemen floating in a skiff upon the clear
+      waters of Lake George. One of them is a successful statesman, an
+      ex-President of the United States, a lawyer versed in all the curious
+      eccentricities of the "lawless science of the law." The other is a learned
+      doctor of medicine, able to give a name to all diseases from which men
+      have imagined that they suffered, and to invent new ones for those who are
+      tired of vulgar maladies. But all their learning is forgotten, their cares
+      and controversies are laid aside, in "innocuous desuetude." The Summer
+      School of Sociology is assembled. The Medical Congress is in session.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But they care not&mdash;no, not so much as the value of a single live
+      bait. The sun shines upon them with a fervent heat, but it irks them not.
+      The rain descends, and the winds blow and beat upon them, but they are
+      unmoved. They are securely anchored here in the lee of Sabbath-Day Point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What enchantment binds them to that inconsiderable spot? What magic fixes
+      their eyes upon the point of a fishing-rod, as if it were the finger of
+      destiny? It is the enchantment of uncertainty: the same natural magic that
+      draws the little suburban boys in the spring of the year, with their
+      strings and pin-hooks, around the shallow ponds where dace and redfins
+      hide; the same irresistible charm that fixes a row of city gamins, like
+      ragged and disreputable fish-crows, on the end of a pier where blear-eyed
+      flounders sometimes lurk in the muddy water. Let the philosopher explain
+      it as he will. Let the moralist reprehend it as he chooses. There is
+      nothing that attracts human nature more powerfully than the sport of
+      tempting the unknown with a fishing-line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those ancient anglers have set out upon an exodus from the tedious realm
+      of the definite, the fixed, the must-certainly-come-to-pass. They are on a
+      holiday in the free country of peradventure. They do not know at this
+      moment whether the next turn of Fortune's reel will bring up a perch or a
+      pickerel, a sunfish or a black bass. It may be a hideous catfish or a
+      squirming eel, or it may be a lake-trout, the grand prize in the Lake
+      George lottery. There they sit, those gray-haired lads, full of hope, yet
+      equally prepared for resignation; taking no thought for the morrow, and
+      ready to make the best of to-day; harmless and happy players at the best
+      of all games of chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In other words," I hear some severe and sour-complexioned reader say, "in
+      plain language, they are a pair of old gamblers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, if it pleases you to call honest men by a bad name. But they risk
+      nothing that is not their own; and if they lose, they are not
+      impoverished. They desire nothing that belongs to other men; and if they
+      win, no one is robbed. If all gambling were like that, it would be
+      difficult to see the harm in it. Indeed, a daring moralist might even
+      assert, and prove by argument, that so innocent a delight in the taking of
+      chances is an aid to virtue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do you remember Martin Luther's reasoning on the subject of "excellent
+      large pike"? He maintains that God would never have created them so good
+      to the taste, if He had not meant them to be eaten. And for the same
+      reason I conclude that this world would never have been left so full of
+      uncertainties, nor human nature framed so as to find a peculiar joy and
+      exhilaration in meeting them bravely and cheerfully, if it had not been
+      divinely intended that most of our amusement and much of our education
+      should come from this source.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Chance" is a disreputable word, I know. It is supposed by many pious
+      persons to be improper and almost blasphemous to use it. But I am not one
+      of those who share this verbal prejudice. I am inclined rather to believe
+      that it is a good word to which a bad reputation has been given. I feel
+      grateful to that admirable "psychologist who writes like a novelist," Mr.
+      William James, for his brilliant defence of it. For what does it mean,
+      after all, but that some things happen in a certain way which might have
+      happened in another way? Where is the immorality, the irreverence, the
+      atheism in such a supposition? Certainly God must be competent to govern a
+      world in which there are possibilities of various kinds, just as well as
+      one in which every event is inevitably determined beforehand. St. Peter
+      and the other fishermen-disciples on the Lake of Galilee were perfectly
+      free to cast their net on either side of the ship. So far as they could
+      see, so far as any one could see, it was a matter of chance where they
+      chose to cast it. But it was not until they let it down, at the Master's
+      word, on the right side that they had good luck. And not the least element
+      of their joy in the draft of fishes was that it brought a change of
+      fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leave the metaphysics of the question on the table for the present. As a
+      matter of fact, it is plain that our human nature is adapted to conditions
+      variable, undetermined, and hidden from our view. We are not fitted to
+      live in a world where a + b always equals c, and there is nothing more to
+      follow. The interest of life's equation arrives with the appearance of x,
+      the unknown quantity. A settled, unchangeable, clearly foreseeable order
+      of things does not suit our constitution. It tends to melancholy and a
+      fatty heart. Creatures of habit we are undoubtedly; but it is one of our
+      most fixed habits to be fond of variety. The man who is never surprised
+      does not know the taste of happiness, and unless the unexpected sometimes
+      happens to us, we are most grievously disappointed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Much of the tediousness of highly civilized life comes from its smoothness
+      and regularity. To-day is like yesterday, and we think that we can predict
+      to-morrow. Of course we cannot really do so. The chances are still there.
+      But we have covered them up so deeply with the artificialities of life
+      that we lose sight of them. It seems as if everything in our neat little
+      world were arranged, and provided for, and reasonably sure to come to
+      pass. The best way of escape from this TAEDIUM VITAE is through a
+      recreation like angling, not only because it is so evidently a matter of
+      luck, but also because it tempts us into a wilder, freer life. It leads
+      almost inevitably to camping out, which is a wholesome and sanitary
+      imprudence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is curious and pleasant, to my apprehension, to observe how many people
+      in New England, one of whose States is called "the land of Steady Habits,"
+      are sensible of the joy of changing them,&mdash;out of doors. These good
+      folk turn out from their comfortable farm-houses and their snug suburban
+      cottages to go a-gypsying for a fortnight among the mountains or beside
+      the sea. You see their white tents gleaming from the pine-groves around
+      the little lakes, and catch glimpses of their bathing-clothes drying in
+      the sun on the wiry grass that fringes the sand-dunes. Happy fugitives
+      from the bondage of routine! They have found out that a long journey is
+      not necessary to a good vacation. You may reach the Forest of Arden in a
+      buckboard. The Fortunate Isles are within sailing distance in a dory. And
+      a voyage on the river Pactolus is open to any one who can paddle a canoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was talking&mdash;or rather listening&mdash;with a barber, the other
+      day, in the sleepy old town of Rivermouth. He told me, in one of those
+      easy confidences which seem to make the razor run more smoothly, that it
+      had been the custom of his family, for some twenty years past, to forsake
+      their commodious dwelling on Anchor Street every summer, and emigrate six
+      miles, in a wagon to Wallis Sands, where they spent the month of August
+      very merrily under canvas. Here was a sensible household for you! They did
+      not feel bound to waste a year's income on a four weeks' holiday. They
+      were not of those foolish folk who run across the sea, carefully carrying
+      with them the same tiresome mind that worried them at home. They got a
+      change of air by making an alteration of life. They escaped from the land
+      of Egypt by stepping out into the wilderness and going a-fishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people who always live in houses, and sleep on beds, and walk on
+      pavements, and buy their food from butchers and bakers and grocers, are
+      not the most blessed inhabitants of this wide and various earth. The
+      circumstances of their existence are too mathematical and secure for
+      perfect contentment. They live at second or third hand. They are boarders
+      in the world. Everything is done for them by somebody else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is almost impossible for anything very interesting to happen to them.
+      They must get their excitement out of the newspapers, reading of the
+      hairbreadth escapes and moving accidents that befall people in real life.
+      What do these tame ducks really know of the adventure of living? If the
+      weather is bad, they are snugly housed. If it is cold, there is a furnace
+      in the cellar. If they are hungry, the shops are near at hand. It is all
+      as dull, flat, stale, and unprofitable as adding up a column of figures.
+      They might as well be brought up in an incubator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when man abides in tents, after the manner of the early patriarchs,
+      the face of the world is renewed. The vagaries of the clouds become
+      significant. You watch the sky with a lover's look, eager to know whether
+      it will smile or frown. When you lie at night upon your bed of boughs and
+      hear the rain pattering on the canvas close above your head, you wonder
+      whether it is a long storm or only a shower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rising wind shakes the tent-flaps. Are the pegs well driven down and
+      the cords firmly fastened? You fall asleep again and wake later, to hear
+      the rain drumming still more loudly on the tight cloth, and the big breeze
+      snoring through the forest, and the waves plunging along the beach. A
+      stormy day? Well, you must cut plenty of wood and keep the camp-fire
+      glowing, for it will be hard to start it up again, if you let it get too
+      low. There is little use in fishing or hunting in such a storm. But there
+      is plenty to do in the camp: guns to be cleaned, tackle to be put in
+      order, clothes to be mended, a good story of adventure to be read, a
+      belated letter to be written to some poor wretch in a summer hotel, a game
+      of hearts or cribbage to be played, or a hunting-trip to be planned for
+      the return of fair weather. The tent is perfectly dry. A little trench dug
+      around it carries off the surplus water, and luckily it is pitched with
+      the side to the lake, so that you get the pleasant heat of the fire
+      without the unendurable smoke. Cooking in the rain has its disadvantages.
+      But how good the supper tastes when it is served up on a tin plate, with
+      an empty box for a table and a roll of blankets at the foot of the bed for
+      a seat!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A day, two days, three days, the storm may continue, according to your
+      luck. I have been out in the woods for a fortnight without a drop of rain
+      or a sign of dust. Again, I have tented on the shore of a big lake for a
+      week, waiting for an obstinate tempest to pass by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Look now, just at nightfall: is there not a little lifting and breaking of
+      the clouds in the west, a little shifting of the wind toward a better
+      quarter? You go to bed with cheerful hopes. A dozen times in the darkness
+      you are half awake, and listening drowsily to the sounds of the storm. Are
+      they waxing or waning? Is that louder pattering a new burst of rain, or is
+      it only the plumping of the big drops as they are shaken from the trees?
+      See, the dawn has come, and the gray light glimmers through the canvas. In
+      a little while you will know your fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Look! There is a patch of bright yellow radiance on the peak of the tent.
+      The shadow of a leaf dances over it. The sun must be shining. Good luck!
+      and up with you, for it is a glorious morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woods are glistening as fresh and fair as if they had been new-created
+      overnight. The water sparkles, and tiny waves are dancing and splashing
+      all along the shore. Scarlet berries of the mountain-ash hang around the
+      lake. A pair of kingfishers dart back and forth across the bay, in flashes
+      of living blue. A black eagle swings silently around his circle, far up in
+      the cloudless sky. The air is full of pleasant sounds, but there is no
+      noise. The world is full of joyful life, but there is no crowd and no
+      confusion. There is no factory chimney to darken the day with its smoke,
+      no trolley-car to split the silence with its shriek and smite the
+      indignant ear with the clanging of its impudent bell. No lumberman's axe
+      has robbed the encircling forests of their glory of great trees. No fires
+      have swept over the hills and left behind them the desolation of a bristly
+      landscape. All is fresh and sweet, calm and clear and bright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Twas rather a rude jest of Nature, that tempest of yesterday. But if you
+      have taken it in good part, you are all the more ready for her caressing
+      mood to-day. And now you must be off to get your dinner&mdash;not to order
+      it at a shop, but to look for it in the woods and waters. You are ready to
+      do your best with rod or gun. You will use all the skill you have as
+      hunter or fisherman. But what you shall find, and whether you shall
+      subsist on bacon and biscuit, or feast on trout and partridges, is, after
+      all, a matter of luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I profess that it appears to me not only pleasant, but also salutary, to
+      be in this condition. It brings us home to the plain realities of life; it
+      teaches us that a man ought to work before he eats; it reminds us that,
+      after he has done all he can, he must still rely upon a mysterious bounty
+      for his daily bread. It says to us, in homely and familiar words, that
+      life was meant to be uncertain, that no man can tell what a day will bring
+      forth, and that it is the part of wisdom to be prepared for
+      disappointments and grateful for all kinds of small mercies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a story in that fragrant book, THE LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS,
+      which I wish to transcribe here, without tying a moral to it, lest any one
+      should accuse me of preaching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hence [says the quaint old chronicler], having assigned to his companions
+      the other parts of the world, St. Francis, taking Brother Maximus as his
+      comrade, set forth toward the province of France. And coming one day to a
+      certain town, and being very hungry, they begged their bread as they went,
+      according to the rule of their order, for the love of God. And St. Francis
+      went through one quarter of the town, and Brother Maximus through another.
+      But forasmuch as St. Francis was a man mean and low of stature, and hence
+      was reputed a vile beggar by such as knew him not, he only received a few
+      scanty crusts and mouthfuls of dry bread. But to Brother Maximus, who was
+      large and well favoured, were given good pieces and big, and an abundance
+      of bread, yea, whole loaves. Having thus begged, they met together without
+      the town to eat, at a place where there was a clear spring and a fair
+      large stone, upon which each spread forth the gifts that he had received.
+      And St. Francis, seeing that the pieces of bread begged by Brother Maximus
+      were bigger and better than his own, rejoiced greatly, saying, 'Oh,
+      Brother Maximus, we are not worthy of so great a treasure.' As he repeated
+      these words many times, Brother Maximus made answer: 'Father, how can you
+      talk of treasures when there is such great poverty and such lack of all
+      things needful? Here is neither napkin nor knife, neither board nor
+      trencher, neither house nor table, neither man-servant nor maid-servant.'
+      St. Francis replied: 'And this is what I reckon a great treasure, where
+      naught is made ready by human industry, but all that is here is prepared
+      by Divine Providence, as is plainly set forth in the bread which we have
+      begged, in the table of fair stone, and in the spring of clear water. And
+      therefore I would that we should pray to God that He teach us with all our
+      hearts to love the treasure of holy poverty, which is so noble a thing,
+      and whose servant is God the Lord.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know of but one fairer description of a repast in the open air; and that
+      is where we are told how certain poor fishermen, coming in very weary
+      after a night of toil (and one of them very wet after swimming ashore),
+      found their Master standing on the bank of the lake waiting for them. But
+      it seems that he must have been busy in their behalf while he was waiting;
+      for there was a bright fire of coals burning on the shore, and a goodly
+      fish broiling thereon, and bread to eat with it. And when the Master had
+      asked them about their fishing, he said, "Come, now, and get your
+      breakfast." So they sat down around the fire, and with his own hands he
+      served them with the bread and the fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all the banquets that have ever been given upon earth, that is the one
+      in which I would rather have had a share.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it is now time that we should return to our fishing. And let us
+      observe with gratitude that almost all of the pleasures that are connected
+      with this pursuit&mdash;its accompaniments and variations, which run along
+      with the tune and weave an embroidery of delight around it&mdash;have an
+      accidental and gratuitous quality about them. They are not to be counted
+      upon beforehand. They are like something that is thrown into a purchase by
+      a generous and open-handed dealer, to make us pleased with our bargain and
+      inclined to come back to the same shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I knew, for example, before setting out for a day on the brook,
+      precisely what birds I should see, and what pretty little scenes in the
+      drama of woodland life were to be enacted before my eyes, the expedition
+      would lose more than half its charm. But, in fact, it is almost entirely a
+      matter of luck, and that is why it never grows tiresome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ornithologist knows pretty well where to look for the birds, and he
+      goes directly to the places where he can find them, and proceeds to study
+      them intelligently and systematically. But the angler who idles down the
+      stream takes them as they come, and all his observations have a flavour of
+      surprise in them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hears a familiar song,&mdash;one that he has often heard at a distance,
+      but never identified,&mdash;a loud, cheery, rustic cadence sounding from a
+      low pine-tree close beside him. He looks up carefully through the needles
+      and discovers a hooded warbler, a tiny, restless creature, dressed in
+      green and yellow, with two white feathers in its tail, like the ends of a
+      sash, and a glossy little black bonnet drawn closely about its golden
+      head. He will never forget that song again. It will make the woods seem
+      homelike to him, many a time, as he hears it ringing through the
+      afternoon, like the call of a small country girl playing at hide-and-seek:
+      "See ME; here I BE."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another day he sits down on a mossy log beside a cold, trickling spring to
+      eat his lunch. It has been a barren day for birds. Perhaps he has fallen
+      into the fault of pursuing his sport too intensely, and tramped along the
+      stream looking for nothing but fish. Perhaps this part of the grove has
+      really been deserted by its feathered inhabitants, scared away by a
+      prowling hawk or driven out by nest-hunters. But now, without notice, the
+      luck changes. A surprise-party of redstarts breaks into full play around
+      him. All through the dark-green shadow of the hemlocks they flash like
+      little candles&mdash;CANDELITAS, the Cubans call them. Their brilliant
+      markings of orange and black, and their fluttering, airy, graceful
+      movements, make them most welcome visitors. There is no bird in the bush
+      easier to recognize or pleasanter to watch. They run along the branches
+      and dart and tumble through the air in fearless chase of invisible flies
+      and moths. All the time they keep unfolding and furling their rounded
+      tails, spreading them out and waving them and closing them suddenly, just
+      as the Cuban girls manage their fans. In fact, the redstarts are the tiny
+      fantail pigeons of the forest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are other things about the birds, besides their musical talents and
+      their good looks, that the fisherman has a chance to observe on his lucky
+      days. He may sea something of their courage and their devotion to their
+      young.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I suppose a bird is the bravest creature that lives, in spite of its
+      natural timidity. From which we may learn that true courage is not
+      incompatible with nervousness, and that heroism does not mean the absence
+      of fear, but the conquest of it. Who does not remember the first time that
+      he ever came upon a hen-partridge with her brood, as he was strolling
+      through the woods in June? How splendidly the old bird forgets herself in
+      her efforts to defend and hide her young!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Smaller birds are no less daring. One evening last summer I was walking up
+      the Ristigouche from Camp Harmony to fish for salmon at Mowett's Rock,
+      where my canoe was waiting for me. As I stepped out from a thicket on to
+      the shingly bank of the river, a spotted sandpiper teetered along before
+      me, followed by three young ones. Frightened at first, the mother flew out
+      a few feet over the water. But the piperlings could not fly, having no
+      feathers; and they crept under a crooked log. I rolled the log over very
+      gently and took one of the cowering creatures into my hand&mdash;a tiny,
+      palpitating scrap of life, covered with soft gray down, and peeping
+      shrilly, like a Liliputian chicken. And now the mother was transformed.
+      Her fear was changed into fury. She was a bully, a fighter, an Amazon in
+      feathers. She flew at me with loud cries, dashing herself almost into my
+      face. I was a tyrant, a robber, a kidnapper, and she called heaven to
+      witness that she would never give up her offspring without a struggle.
+      Then she changed her tactics and appealed to my baser passions. She fell
+      to the ground and fluttered around me as if her wing were broken. "Look!"
+      she seemed to say, "I am bigger than that poor little baby. If you must
+      eat something, eat me! My wing is lame. I can't fly. You can easily catch
+      me. Let that little bird go!" And so I did; and the whole family
+      disappeared in the bushes as if by magic. I wondered whether the mother
+      was saying to herself, after the manner of her sex, that men are stupid
+      things, after all, and no match for the cleverness of a female who stoops
+      to deception in a righteous cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, that trivial experience was what I call a piece of good luck&mdash;for
+      me, and, in the event, for the sandpiper. But it is doubtful whether it
+      would be quite so fresh and pleasant in the remembrance, if it had not
+      also fallen to my lot to take two uncommonly good salmon on that same
+      evening, in a dry season.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never believe a fisherman when he tells you that he does not care about
+      the fish he catches. He may say that he angles only for the pleasure of
+      being out-of-doors, and that he is just as well contented when he takes
+      nothing as when he makes a good catch. He may think so, but it is not
+      true. He is not telling a deliberate falsehood. He is only assuming an
+      unconscious pose, and indulging in a delicate bit of self-flattery. Even
+      if it were true, it would not be at all to his credit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Watch him on that lucky day when he comes home with a full basket of trout
+      on his shoulder, or a quartette of silver salmon covered with green
+      branches in the bottom of the canoe. His face is broader than it was when
+      he went out, and there is a sparkle of triumph in his eye. "It is naught,
+      it is naught," he says, in modest depreciation of his triumph. But you
+      shall see that he lingers fondly about the place where the fish are
+      displayed upon the grass, and does not fail to look carefully at the
+      scales when they are weighed, and has an attentive ear for the comments of
+      admiring spectators. You shall find, moreover, that he is not unwilling to
+      narrate the story of the capture&mdash;how the big fish rose short, four
+      times, to four different flies, and finally took a small Black Dose, and
+      played all over the pool, and ran down a terribly stiff rapid to the next
+      pool below, and sulked for twenty minutes, and had to be stirred up with
+      stones, and made such a long fight that, when he came in at last, the hold
+      of the hook was almost worn through, and it fell out of his mouth as he
+      touched the shore. Listen to this tale as it is told, with endless
+      variations, by every man who has brought home a fine fish, and you will
+      perceive that the fisherman does care for his luck, after all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And why not? I am no friend to the people who receive the bounties of
+      Providence without visible gratitude. When the sixpence falls into your
+      hat, you may laugh. When the messenger of an unexpected blessing takes you
+      by the hand and lifts you up and bids you walk, you may leap and run and
+      sing for joy, even as the lame man, whom St. Peter healed, skipped piously
+      and rejoiced aloud as he passed through the Beautiful Gate of the Temple.
+      There is no virtue in solemn indifference. Joy is just as much a duty as
+      beneficence is. Thankfulness is the other side of mercy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you have good luck in anything, you ought to be glad. Indeed, if you
+      are not glad, you are not really lucky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But boasting and self-glorification I would have excluded, and most of all
+      from the behaviour of the angler. He, more than other men, is dependent
+      for his success upon the favour of an unseen benefactor. Let his skill and
+      industry be never so great, he can do nothing unless LA BONNE CHANCE comes
+      to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was once fishing on a fair little river, the P'tit Saguenay, with two
+      excellent anglers and pleasant companions, H. E. G&mdash;&mdash; and C. S.
+      D&mdash;&mdash;. They had done all that was humanly possible to secure
+      good sport. The stream had been well preserved. They had boxes full of
+      beautiful flies, and casting-lines imported from England, and a rod for
+      every fish in the river. But the weather was "dour," and the water
+      "drumly," and every day the lumbermen sent a "drive" of ten thousand
+      spruce logs rushing down the flooded stream. For three days we had not
+      seen a salmon, and on the fourth, despairing, we went down to angle for
+      sea-trout in the tide of the greater Saguenay. There, in the salt water,
+      where men say the salmon never take the fly, H. E. G&mdash;&mdash;,
+      fishing with a small trout-rod, a poor, short line, and an ancient red
+      ibis of the common kind, rose and hooked a lordly salmon of at least
+      five-and-thirty pounds. Was not this pure luck?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pride is surely the most unbecoming of all vices in a fisherman. For
+      though intelligence and practice and patience and genius, and many other
+      noble things which modesty forbids him to mention, enter into his pastime,
+      so that it is, as Izaak Walton has firmly maintained, an art; yet, because
+      fortune still plays a controlling hand in the game, its net results should
+      never be spoken of with a haughty and vain spirit. Let not the angler
+      imitate Timoleon, who boasted of his luck and lost it. It is tempting
+      Providence to print the record of your wonderful catches in the sporting
+      newspapers; or at least, if it must be done, there should stand at the
+      head of the column some humble, thankful motto, like "NON NOBIS, DOMINE."
+      Even Father Izaak, when he has a fish on his line, says, with a due sense
+      of human limitations, "There is a trout now, and a good one too, IF I CAN
+      BUT HOLD HIM!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This reminds me that we left H. E. G&mdash;&mdash;, a few sentences back,
+      playing his unexpected salmon, on a trout-rod, in the Saguenay. Four times
+      that great fish leaped into the air; twice he suffered the pliant reed to
+      guide him toward the shore, and twice ran out again to deeper water. Then
+      his spirit awoke within him: he bent the rod like a willow wand, dashed
+      toward the middle of the river, broke the line as if it had been
+      pack-thread, and sailed triumphantly away to join the white porpoises that
+      were tumbling in the tide. "WHE-E-EW," they said, "WHE-E-EW! PSHA-A-AW!"
+      blowing out their breath in long, soft sighs as they rolled about like
+      huge snowballs in the black water. But what did H. E. G&mdash;&mdash; say?
+      He sat him quietly down upon a rock and reeled in the remnant of his line,
+      uttering these remarkable and Christian words: "Those porpoises," said he,
+      "describe the situation rather mildly. But it was good fun while it
+      lasted."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I remembered a saying of Walton: "Well, Scholar, you must endure
+      worse luck sometimes, or you will never make a good angler."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Or a good man, either, I am sure. For he who knows only how to enjoy, and
+      not to endure, is ill-fitted to go down the stream of life through such a
+      world as this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would not have you to suppose, gentle reader, that in discoursing of
+      fisherman's luck I have in mind only those things which may be taken with
+      a hook. It is a parable of human experience. I have been thinking, for
+      instance, of Walton's life as well as of his angling: of the losses and
+      sufferings that he, the firm Royalist, endured when the Commonwealth men
+      came marching into London town; of the consoling days that were granted to
+      him, in troublous times, on the banks of the Lea and the Dove and the New
+      River, and the good friends that he made there, with whom he took sweet
+      counsel in adversity; of the little children who played in his house for a
+      few years, and then were called away into the silent land where he could
+      hear their voices no longer. I was thinking how quietly and peaceably he
+      lived through it all, not complaining nor desponding, but trying to do his
+      work well, whether he was keeping a shop or writing hooks, and seeking to
+      prove himself an honest man and a cheerful companion, and never scorning
+      to take with a thankful heart such small comforts and recreations as came
+      to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a plain, homely, old-fashioned meditation, reader, but not
+      unprofitable. When I talk to you of fisherman's luck, I do not forget that
+      there are deeper things behind it. I remember that what we call our
+      fortunes, good or ill, are but the wise dealings and distributions of a
+      Wisdom higher, and a Kindness greater, than our own. And I suppose that
+      their meaning is that we should learn, by all the uncertainties of our
+      life, even the smallest, how to be brave and steady and temperate and
+      hopeful, whatever comes, because we believe that behind it all there lies
+      a purpose of good, and over it all there watches a providence of blessing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the school of life many branches of knowledge are taught. But the only
+      philosophy that amounts to anything, after all, is just the secret of
+      making friends with our luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE THRILLING MOMENT
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "In angling, as in all other recreations into which
+     excitement enters, we have to be on our guard, so that we
+     can at any moment throw a weight of self-control into the
+     scale against misfortune; and happily we can study to some
+     purpose, both to increase our pleasure in success and to
+     lessen our distress caused by what goes ill.  It is not only
+     in cases of great disasters, however, that the angler needs
+     self-control.  He is perpetually called upon to use it to
+     withstand small exasperations."
+
+     &mdash;SIR EDWARD GREY: Fly-Fishing.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Every moment of life, I suppose, is more or less of a turning-point.
+      Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, thicker than gnats at
+      sundown. We walk through a cloud of chances, and if we were always
+      conscious of them they would worry us almost to death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But happily our sense of uncertainty is soothed and cushioned by habit, so
+      that we can live comfortably with it. Only now and then, by way of special
+      excitement, it starts up wide awake. We perceive how delicately our
+      fortune is poised and balanced on the pivot of a single incident. We get a
+      peep at the oscillating needle, and, because we have happened to see it
+      tremble, we call our experience a crisis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meditative angler is not exempt from these sensational periods. There
+      are times when all the uncertainty of his chosen pursuit seems to condense
+      itself into one big chance, and stand out before him like a salmon on the
+      top wave of a rapid. He sees that his luck hangs by a single strand, and
+      he cannot tell whether it will hold or break. This is his thrilling
+      moment, and he never forgets it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mine came to me in the autumn of 1894, on the banks of the Unpronounceable
+      River, in the Province of Quebec. It was the last day, of the open season
+      for ouananiche, and we had set our hearts on catching some good fish to
+      take home with us. We walked up from the mouth of the river, four
+      preposterously long and rough miles, to the famous fishing-pool, "LA PLACE
+      DE PECHE A BOIVIN." It was a noble day for walking; the air was clear and
+      crisp, and all the hills around us were glowing with the crimson foliage
+      of those little bushes which God created to make burned lands look
+      beautiful. The trail ended in a precipitous gully, down which we scrambled
+      with high hopes, and fishing-rods unbroken, only to find that the river
+      was in a condition which made angling absurd if not impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There must have been a cloud-burst among the mountains, for the water was
+      coming down in flood. The stream was bank-full, gurgling and eddying out
+      among the bushes, and rushing over the shoal where the fish used to lie,
+      in a brown torrent ten feet deep. Our last day with the land-locked salmon
+      seemed destined to be a failure, and we must wait eight months before we
+      could have another. There were three of us in the disappointment, and we
+      shared it according to our temperaments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paul virtuously resolved not to give up while there was a chance left, and
+      wandered down-stream to look for an eddy where he might pick up a small
+      fish. Ferdinand, our guide, resigned himself without a sigh to the
+      consolation of eating blueberries, which he always did with great
+      cheerfulness. But I, being more cast down than either of my comrades,
+      sought out a convenient seat among the rocks, and, adapting my anatomy as
+      well as possible to the irregularities of nature's upholstery, pulled from
+      my pocket AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE DALE, and settled down to read
+      myself into a Christian frame of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before beginning, my eyes roved sadly over the pool once more. It was but
+      a casual glance. It lasted only for an instant. But in that fortunate
+      fragment of time I distinctly saw the broad tail of a big ouananiche rise
+      and disappear in the swift water at the very head of the pool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately the whole aspect of affairs was changed. Despondency vanished,
+      and the river glittered with the beams of rising hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such is the absurd disposition of some anglers. They never see a fish
+      without believing that they can catch him; but if they see no fish, they
+      are inclined to think that the river is empty and the world hollow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I said nothing to my companions. It would have been unkind to disturb them
+      with expectations which might never be realized. My immediate duty was to
+      get within casting distance of that salmon as soon as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The way along the shore of the pool was difficult. The bank was very
+      steep, and the rocks by the river's edge were broken and glibbery.
+      Presently I came to a sheer wall of stone, perhaps thirty feet high,
+      rising directly from the deep water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tiny ledge or crevice running part of the way across the face
+      of this wall, and by this four-inch path I edged along, holding my rod in
+      one hand, and clinging affectionately with the other to such clumps of
+      grass and little bushes as I could find. There was one small huckleberry
+      plant to which I had a particular attachment. It was fortunately a firm
+      little bush, and as I held fast to it I remembered Tennyson's poem which
+      begins
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Flower in the crannied wall,"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      and reflected that if I should succeed in plucking out this flower, "root
+      and all," it would probably result in an even greater increase of
+      knowledge than the poet contemplated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ledge in the rock now came to an end. But below me in the pool there
+      was a sunken reef; and on this reef a long log had caught, with one end
+      sticking out of the water, within jumping distance. It was the only
+      chance. To go back would have been dangerous. An angler with a large
+      family dependent upon him for support has no right to incur unnecessary
+      perils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides, the fish was waiting for me at the upper end of the pool!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I jumped; landed on the end of the log; felt it settle slowly down; ran
+      along it like a small boy on a seesaw, and leaped off into shallow water
+      just as the log rolled from the ledge and lunged out into the stream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It went wallowing through the pool and down the rapid like a playful
+      hippopotamus. I watched it with interest and congratulated myself that I
+      was no longer embarked upon it. On that craft a voyage down the
+      Unpronounceable River would have been short but far from merry. The "all
+      ashore" bell was not rung early enough. I just got off, with not half a
+      second to spare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now all was well, for I was within reach of the fish. A little
+      scrambling over the rocks brought me to a point where I could easily cast
+      over him. He was lying in a swift, smooth, narrow channel between two
+      large stones. It was a snug resting-place, and no doubt he would remain
+      there for some time. So I took out my fly-book and prepared to angle for
+      him according to the approved rules of the art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing is more foolish in sport than the habit of precipitation. And yet
+      it is a fault to which I am singularly subject. As a boy, in Brooklyn, I
+      never came in sight of the Capitoline Skating Pond, after a long ride in
+      the horse-cars, without breaking into a run along the board walk, buckling
+      on my skates in a furious hurry, and flinging myself impetuously upon the
+      ice, as if I feared that it would melt away before I could reach it. Now
+      this, I confess, is a grievous defect, which advancing years have not
+      entirely cured; and I found it necessary to take myself firmly, as it
+      were, by the mental coat-collar, and resolve not to spoil the chance of
+      catching the only ouananiche in the Unpronounceable River by undue haste
+      in fishing for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I carefully tested a brand-new leader, and attached it to the line with
+      great deliberation and the proper knot. Then I gave my whole mind to the
+      important question of a wise selection of flies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is astonishing how much time and mental anxiety a man can spend on an
+      apparently simple question like this. When you are buying flies in a shop
+      it seems as if you never had half enough. You keep on picking out a
+      half-dozen of each new variety as fast as the enticing salesman shows them
+      to you. You stroll through the streets of Montreal or Quebec and drop in
+      at every fishing-tackle dealer's to see whether you can find a few more
+      good flies. Then, when you come to look over your collection at the
+      critical moment on the bank of a stream, it seems as if you had ten times
+      too many. And, spite of all, the precise fly that you need is not there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You select a couple that you think fairly good, lay them down beside you
+      in the grass, and go on looking through the book for something better.
+      Failing to satisfy yourself, you turn to pick up those that you have laid
+      out, and find that they have mysteriously vanished from the face of the
+      earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then you struggle with naughty words and relapse into a condition of
+      mental palsy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Precipitation is a fault. But deliberation, for a person of precipitate
+      disposition, is a vice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The best thing to do in such a case is to adopt some abstract theory of
+      action without delay, and put it into practice without hesitation. Then if
+      you fail, you can throw the responsibility on the theory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, in regard to flies there are two theories. The old, conservative
+      theory is, that on a bright day you should use a dark, dull fly, because
+      it is less conspicuous. So I followed that theory first and put on a Great
+      Dun and a Dark Montreal. I cast them delicately over the fish, but he
+      would not look at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I perverted myself to the new, radical theory which says that on a
+      bright day you must use a light, gay fly, because it is more in harmony
+      with the sky, and therefore less noticeable. Accordingly I put on a
+      Professor and a Parmacheene Belle; but this combination of learning and
+      beauty had no attraction for the ouananiche.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I fell back on a theory of my own, to the effect that the ouananiche
+      have an aversion to red, and prefer yellow and brown. So I tried various
+      combinations of flies in which these colours predominated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I abandoned all theories and went straight through my book, trying
+      something from every page, and winding up with that lure which the guides
+      consider infallible,&mdash;"a Jock o' Scott that cost fifty cents at
+      Quebec." But it was all in vain. I was ready to despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this psychological moment I heard behind me a voice of hope,&mdash;the
+      song of a grasshopper: not one of those fat-legged, green-winged imbeciles
+      that feebly tumble in the summer fields, but a game grasshopper,&mdash;one
+      of those thin-shanked, brown-winged fellows that leap like kangaroos, and
+      fly like birds, and sing KRI-KAREE-KAREE-KRI in their flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not really a song, I know, but it sounds like one; and, if you had
+      heard that Kri-karee carolling as I chased him over the rocks, you would
+      have been sure that he was mocking me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believed that he was the predestined lure for that ouananiche; but it
+      was hard to persuade him to fulfill his destiny. I slapped at him with my
+      hat, but he was not there. I grasped at him on the bushes, and brought
+      away "nothing but leaves." At last he made his way to the very edge of the
+      water and poised himself on a stone, with his legs well tucked in for a
+      long leap and a bold flight to the other side of the river. It was my
+      final opportunity. I made a desperate grab at it and caught the
+      grasshopper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My premonition proved to be correct. When that Kri-karee, invisibly
+      attached to my line, went floating down the stream, the ouananiche was
+      surprised. It was the fourteenth of September, and he had supposed the
+      grasshopper season was over. The unexpected temptation was too strong for
+      him. He rose with a rush, and in an instant I was fast to the best
+      land-locked salmon of the year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the situation was not without its embarrassments. My rod weighed only
+      four and a quarter ounces; the fish weighed between six and seven pounds.
+      The water was furious and headstrong. I had only thirty yards of line and
+      no landing-net.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "HOLA! FERDINAND!" I cried. "APPORTE LA NETTE, VITE! A BEAUTY! HURRY UP!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought it must be an hour while he was making his way over the hill,
+      through the underbrush, around the cliff. Again and again the fish ran out
+      my line almost to the last turn. A dozen times he leaped from the water,
+      shaking his silvery sides. Twice he tried to cut the leader across a
+      sunken ledge. But at last he was played out, and came in quietly towards
+      the point of the rock. At the same moment Ferdinand appeared with the net.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the use of the net is really the most difficult part of angling. And
+      Ferdinand is the best netsman in the Lake St. John country. He never makes
+      the mistake of trying to scoop a fish in motion. He does not grope around
+      with aimless, futile strokes as if he were feeling for something in the
+      dark. He does not entangle the dropper-fly in the net and tear the
+      tail-fly out of the fish's mouth. He does not get excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He quietly sinks the net in the water, and waits until he can see the fish
+      distinctly, lying perfectly still and within reach. Then he makes a swift
+      movement, like that of a mower swinging the scythe, takes the fish into
+      the net head-first, and lands him without a slip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I felt sure that Ferdinand was going to do the trick in precisely this way
+      with my ouananiche. Just at the right instant he made one quick, steady
+      swing of the arms, and&mdash;the head of the net broke clean off the
+      handle and went floating away with the fish in it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All seemed to be lost. But Ferdinand was equal to the occasion. He seized
+      a long, crooked stick that lay in a pile of driftwood on the shore, sprang
+      into the water up to his waist, caught the net as it drifted past, and
+      dragged it to land, with the ultimate ouananiche, the prize of the season,
+      still glittering through its meshes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the story of my most thrilling moment as an angler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But which was the moment of the deepest thrill?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was it when the huckleberry bush saved me from a watery grave, or when the
+      log rolled under my feet and started down the river? Was it when the fish
+      rose, or when the net broke, or when the long stick captured it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, it was none of these. It was when the Kri-karee sat with his legs
+      tucked under him on the brink of the stream. That was the turning-point.
+      The fortunes of the day depended on the comparative quickness of the
+      reflex action of his neural ganglia and mine. That was the thrilling
+      moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see it now. A crisis is really the commonest thing in the world. The
+      reason why life sometimes seems dull to us is because we do not perceive
+      the importance and the excitement of getting bait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      TALKABILITY
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A PRELUDE AND THEME WITH VARIATIONS
+    </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "He praises a meditative life, and with evident sincerity:
+     but we feel that he liked nothing so well as good talk."
+
+     &mdash;JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: Walton.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I. PRELUDE&mdash;ON AN OLD, FOOLISH MAXIM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The inventor of the familiar maxim that "fishermen must not talk" is lost
+      in the mists of antiquity, and well deserves his fate. For a more foolish
+      rule, a conventionality more obscure and aimless in its tyranny, was never
+      imposed upon an innocent and honourable occupation, to diminish its
+      pleasure and discount its profits. Why, in the name of all that is genial,
+      should anglers go about their harmless sport in stealthy silence like
+      conspirators, or sit together in a boat, dumb, glum, and penitential, like
+      naughty schoolboys on the bench of disgrace? 'Tis an Omorcan superstition;
+      a rule without a reason; a venerable, idiotic fashion invented to repress
+      lively spirits and put a premium on stupidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my part, I incline rather to the opinion of the Neapolitan fishermen
+      who maintain that a certain amount of noise, of certain kinds, is likely
+      to improve the fishing, and who have a particular song, very sweet and
+      charming, which they sing to draw the fishes around them. It is narrated,
+      likewise, of the good St. Brandan, that on his notable voyage from Ireland
+      in search of Paradise, he chanted the service for St. Peter's day so
+      pleasantly that a subaqueous audience of all sorts and sizes was
+      attracted, insomuch that the other monks began to be afraid, and begged
+      the abbot that he would sing a little lower, for they were not quite sure
+      of the intention of the congregation. Of St. Anthony of Padua it is said
+      that he even succeeded in persuading the fishes, in great multitudes, to
+      listen to a sermon; and that when it was ended (it must be noted that it
+      was both short and cheerful) they bowed their heads and moved their bodies
+      up and down with every mark of fondness and approval of what the holy
+      father had spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If we can believe this, surely we need not be incredulous of things which
+      seem to be no less, but rather more, in harmony with the course of nature.
+      Creatures who are sensible to the attractions of a sermon can hardly be
+      indifferent to the charm of other kinds of discourse. I can easily imagine
+      a company of grayling wishing to overhear a conversation between I. W. and
+      his affectionate (but somewhat prodigal) son and servant, Charles Cotton;
+      and surely every intelligent salmon in Scotland might have been glad to
+      hear Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd bandy jests and swap
+      stories. As for trout,&mdash;was there one in Massachusetts that would not
+      have been curious to listen to the intimate opinions of Daniel Webster as
+      he loafed along the banks of the Marshpee,&mdash;or is there one in
+      Pennsylvania to-day that might not be drawn with interest and delight to
+      the feet of Joseph Jefferson, telling how he conceived and wrote RIP VAN
+      WINKLE on the banks of a trout-stream?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fishermen must be silent? On the contrary, it is far more likely that good
+      talk may promote good fishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this, however, goes upon the assumption that fish can hear, in the
+      proper sense of the word. And this, it must be confessed, is an assumption
+      not yet fully verified. Experienced anglers and students of fishy ways are
+      divided upon the question. It is beyond a doubt that all fishes, except
+      the very lowest forms, have ears. But then so have all men; and yet we
+      have the best authority for believing that there are many who "having
+      ears, hear not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ears of fishes, for the most part, are inclosed in their skull, and
+      have no outward opening. Water conveys sound, as every country boy knows
+      who has tried the experiment of diving to the bottom of the swimming-hole
+      and knocking two big stones together. But I doubt whether any country boy,
+      engaged in this interesting scientific experiment, has heard the
+      conversation of his friends on the bank who were engaged in hiding his
+      clothes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are many curious and more or less venerable stories to the effect
+      that fishes may be trained to assemble at the ringing of a bell or the
+      beating of a drum. Lucian, a writer of the second century, tells of a
+      certain lake wherein many sacred fishes were kept, of which the largest
+      had names given to them, and came when they were called. But Lucian was
+      not a man of especially good reputation, and there is an air of
+      improbability about his statement that the LARGEST fishes came. This is
+      not the custom of the largest fishes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the present century there was a tale of an eel in a garden-well, in
+      Scotland, which would come to be fed out of a spoon when the children
+      called him by his singularly inappropriate name of Rob Roy. This seems a
+      more likely story than Lucian's; at all events it comes from a more
+      orthodox atmosphere. But before giving it full credence, I should like to
+      know whether the children, when they called "Rob Roy!" stood where the eel
+      could see the spoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other side of the question, we may quote Mr. Ronalds, also a
+      Scotchman, and the learned author of THE FLY-FISHER'S ENTOMOLOGY, who
+      conducted a series of experiments which proved that even trout, the most
+      fugacious of fish, are not in the least disturbed by the discharge of a
+      gun, provided the flash is concealed. Mr. Henry P. Wells, the author of
+      THE AMERICAN SALMON ANGLER, says that he has "never been able to make a
+      sound in the air which seemed to produce the slightest effect upon trout
+      in the water."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So the controversy on the hearing of fishes continues, and the conclusion
+      remains open. Every man is at liberty to embrace that side which pleases
+      him best. You may think that the finny tribes are as sensitive to sound as
+      Fine Ear, in the German fairy-tale, who could hear the grass grow. Or you
+      may hold the opposite opinion, that they are
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Deafer than the blue-eyed cat."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But whichever theory you adopt, in practice, if you are a wise fisherman,
+      you will steer a middle course, between one thing which must be left
+      undone and another thing which should be done. You will refrain from
+      stamping on the bank, or knocking on the side of the boat, or dragging the
+      anchor among the stones on the bottom; for when the water vibrates the
+      fish are likely to vanish. But you will indulge as freely as you please in
+      pleasant discourse with your comrade; for it is certain that fishing is
+      never hindered, and may even be helped, in one way or another, by good
+      talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should therefore have no hesitation in advising any one to choose, for
+      companionship on an angling expedition, long or short, a person who has
+      the rare merit of being TALKABLE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II. THEME&mdash;ON A SMALL, USEFUL VIRTUE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Talkable" is not a new adjective. But it needs a new definition, and the
+      complement of a corresponding noun. I would fain set down on paper some
+      observations and reflections which may serve to make its meaning clear,
+      and render due praise to that most excellent quality in man or woman,&mdash;especially
+      in anglers,&mdash;the small but useful virtue of TALKABILITY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert Louis Stevenson uses the word "talkable" in one of his essays to
+      denote a certain distinction among the possible subjects of human speech.
+      There are some things, he says in effect, about which you can really talk;
+      and there are other things about which you cannot properly talk at all,
+      but only dispute, or harangue, or prose, or moralize, or chatter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After mature consideration I have arrived at the opinion that this
+      distinction among the themes of speech is an illusion. It does not exist.
+      All subjects, "the foolish things of the world, and the weak things of the
+      world, and base things of the world, yea, and things that are not," may
+      provide matter for good talk, if only the right people are engaged in the
+      enterprise. I know a man who can make a description of the weather as
+      entertaining as a tune on the violin; and even on the threadbare theme of
+      the waywardness of domestic servants, I have heard a discreet woman play
+      the most diverting and instructive variations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, the quality of talkability does not mark a distinction among things;
+      it denotes a difference among people. It is not an attribute unequally
+      distributed among material objects and abstract ideas. It is a virtue
+      which belongs to the mind and moral character of certain persons. It is a
+      reciprocal human quality; active as well as passive; a power of bestowing
+      and receiving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An amiable person is one who has a capacity for loving and being loved. An
+      affable person is one who is ready to speak and to be spoken to,&mdash;as,
+      for example, Milton's "affable archangel" Raphael; though it must be
+      confessed that he laid the chief emphasis on the active side of his
+      affability. A "clubable" person (to use a word which Dr. Samuel Johnson
+      invented but did not put into his dictionary) is one who is fit for the
+      familiar give and take of club-life. A talkable person, therefore, is one
+      whose nature and disposition invite the easy interchange of thoughts and
+      feelings, one in whose company it is a pleasure to talk or to be talked
+      to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this good quality of talkability is to be distinguished, very strictly
+      and inflexibly, from the bad quality which imitates it and often brings it
+      into discredit. I mean the vice of talkativeness. That is a selfish,
+      one-sided, inharmonious affair, full of discomfort, and productive of most
+      unchristian feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You may observe the operations of this vice not only in human beings, but
+      also in birds. All the birds in the bush can make some kind of a noise;
+      and most of them like to do it; and some of them like it a great deal and
+      do it very much. But it is not always for edification, nor are the most
+      vociferous and garrulous birds commonly the most pleasing. A parrot, for
+      instance, in your neighbour's back yard, in the summer time, when the
+      windows are open, is not an aid to the development of Christian character.
+      I knew a man who had to stay in the city all summer, and in the autumn was
+      asked to describe the character and social standing of a new family that
+      had moved into his neighbourhood. Were they "nice people," well-bred,
+      intelligent, respectable? "Well," said he, "I don't know what your
+      standards are, and would prefer not to say anything libellous; but I'll
+      tell you in a word,&mdash;they are the kind of people that keep a parrot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then there is the English Sparrow! What an insufferable chatterbox, what
+      an incurable scold, what a voluble and tiresome blackguard is this little
+      feathered cockney. There is not a sweet or pleasant word in all his
+      vocabulary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am convinced that he talks altogether of scandals and fights and
+      street-sweepings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The kingdom of ornithology is divided into two departments,&mdash;real
+      birds and English sparrows. English sparrows are not real birds; they are
+      little beasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a church in Brooklyn which was once covered with a great and
+      spreading vine, in which the sparrows built innumerable nests. These
+      ungodly little birds kept up such a din that it was impossible to hear the
+      service of the sanctuary. The faithful clergy strained their voices to the
+      verge of ministerial sore throat, but the people had no peace in their
+      devotions until the vine was cut down, and the Anglican intruders were
+      evicted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A talkative person is like an English sparrow,&mdash;a bird that cannot
+      sing, and will sing, and ought to be persuaded not to try to sing. But a
+      talkable person has the gift that belongs to the wood thrush and the veery
+      and the wren, the oriole and the white-throat and the rose-breasted
+      grosbeak, the mockingbird and the robin (sometimes); and the brown thrush;
+      yes, the brown thrush has it to perfection, if you can catch him alone,&mdash;the
+      gift of being interesting, charming, delightful, in the most off-hand and
+      various modes of utterance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Talkability is not at all the same thing as eloquence. The eloquent man
+      surprises, overwhelms, and sometimes paralyzes us by the display of his
+      power. Great orators are seldom good talkers. Oratory in exercise is
+      masterful and jealous, and intolerant of all interruptions. Oratory in
+      preparation is silent, self-centred, uncommunicative. The painful truth of
+      this remark may be seen in the row of countenances along the president's
+      table at a public banquet about nine o'clock in the evening. The
+      bicycle-face seems unconstrained and merry by comparison with the
+      after-dinner-speech-face. The flow of table-talk is corked by the anxious
+      conception of post-prandial oratory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thackeray, in one of his ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, speaks of "the sin of
+      tall-talking," which, he says, "is the sin of schoolmasters, governesses,
+      critics, sermoners, and instructors of young or old people." But this is
+      not in accord with my observation. I should say it was rather the sin of
+      dilettanti who are ambitious of that high-stepping accomplishment which is
+      called "conversational ability."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This has usually, to my mind, something set and artificial about it,
+      although in its most perfect form the art almost succeeds in concealing
+      itself. But, at all events, ''conversation'' is talk in evening dress,
+      with perhaps a little powder and a touch of rouge. 'T is like one of those
+      wise virgins who are said to look their best by lamplight. And doubtless
+      this is an excellent thing, and not without its advantages. But for my
+      part, commend me to one who loses nothing by the early morning
+      illumination,&mdash;one who brings all her attractions with her when she
+      comes down to breakfast,&mdash;she is a very pleasant maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Talk is that form of human speech which is exempt from all duties, foreign
+      and domestic. It is the nearest thing in the world to thinking and feeling
+      aloud. It is necessarily not for publication,&mdash;solely an evidence of
+      good faith and mutual kindness. You tell me what you have seen and what
+      you are thinking about, because you take it for granted that it will
+      interest and entertain me; and you listen to my replies and the recital of
+      my adventures and opinions, because you know I like to tell them, and
+      because you find something in them, of one kind or another, that you care
+      to hear. It is a nice game, with easy, simple rules, and endless
+      possibilities of variation. And if we go into it with the right spirit,
+      and play it for love, without heavy stakes, the chances are that if we
+      happen to be fairly talkable people we shall have one of the best things
+      in the world,&mdash;a mighty good talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What is there in this anxious, hide-bound, tiresome existence of ours,
+      more restful and remunerative? Montaigne says, "The use of it is more
+      sweet than of any other action of life; and for that reason it is that, if
+      I were compelled to choose, I should sooner, I think, consent to lose my
+      sight than my hearing and speech." The very aimlessness with which it
+      proceeds, the serene disregard of all considerations of profit and
+      propriety with which it follows its wandering course, and brings up
+      anywhere or nowhere, to camp for the night, is one of its attractions. It
+      is like a day's fishing, not valuable chiefly for the fish you bring home,
+      but for the pleasant country through which it leads you, and the state of
+      personal well-being and health in which it leaves you, warmed, and
+      cheered, and content with life and friendship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The order in which you set out upon a talk, the path which you pursue, the
+      rules which you observe or disregard, make but little difference in the
+      end. You may follow the advice of Immanuel Kant if you like, and begin
+      with the weather and the roads, and go on to current events, and wind up
+      with history, art, and philosophy. Or you may reverse the order if you
+      prefer, like that admirable talker Clarence King, who usually set sail on
+      some highly abstract paradox, such as "Civilization is a nervous disease,"
+      and landed in a tale of adventure in Mexico or the Rocky Mountains. Or you
+      may follow the example of Edward Eggleston, who started in at the middle
+      and worked out at either end, and sometimes at both. It makes no
+      difference. If the thing is in you at all, you will find good matter for
+      talk anywhere along the route. Hear what Montaigne says again: "In our
+      discourse all subjects are alike to me; let there be neither weight nor
+      depth, 't is all one; there is yet grace and pertinence; all there is
+      tented with a mature and constant judgment, and mixed with goodness,
+      freedom, gayety, and friendship."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How close to the mark the old essayist sends his arrow! He is right about
+      the essential qualities of good talk. They are not merely intellectual.
+      They are moral. Goodness of heart, freedom of spirit, gayety of temper,
+      and friendliness of disposition,&mdash;these are four fine things, and
+      doubtless as acceptable to God as they are agreeable to men. The
+      talkability which springs out of these qualities has its roots in a good
+      soil. On such a plant one need not look for the poison berries of malign
+      discourse, nor for the Dead Sea apples of frivolous mockery. But fair
+      fruit will be there, pleasant to the sight and good for food, brought
+      forth abundantly according to the season.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III. VARIATIONS&mdash;ON A PLEASANT PHRASE FROM MONTAIGNE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Montaigne has given as our text, "Goodness, freedom, gayety, and
+      friendship,"&mdash;these are the conditions which produce talkability. And
+      on this fourfold theme we may embroider a few variations, by way of
+      exposition and enlargement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GOODNESS is the first thing and the most needful. An ugly, envious,
+      irritable disposition is not fitted for talk. The occasions for offence
+      are too numerous, and the way into strife is too short and easy. A touch
+      of good-natured combativeness, a fondness for brisk argument, a readiness
+      to try a friendly bout with any comer, on any ground, is a decided
+      advantage in a talker. It breaks up the offensive monotony of polite
+      concurrence, and makes things lively. But quarrelsomeness is quite another
+      affair, and very fatal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am always a little uneasy in a discourse with the Reverend Bellicosus
+      Macduff. It is like playing golf on links liable to earthquakes. One never
+      knows when the landscape will be thrown into convulsions. Macduff has a
+      tendency to regard a difference of opinion as a personal insult. If he
+      makes a bad stroke he seems to think that the way to retrieve it is to
+      deliver the next one on the head of the other player. He does not tarry
+      for the invitation to lay on; and before you know what has happened you
+      find yourself in a position where you are obliged to cry, "Hold, enough!"
+      and to be liberally damned without any bargain to that effect. This is
+      discouraging, and calculated to make one wish that human intercourse might
+      be put, as far as Macduff is concerned, upon the gold basis of silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, what a delight it was to talk with that old worthy,
+      Chancellor Howard Crosby. He was a fighting man for four or five
+      generations hack, Dutch on one side, English on the other. But there was
+      not one little drop of gall in his blood. His opinions were fixed to a
+      degree; he loved to do battle for them; he never changed them&mdash;at
+      least never in the course of the same discussion. He admired and respected
+      a gallant adversary, and urged him on, with quips and puns and daring
+      assaults and unqualified statements, to do his best. Easy victories were
+      not to his taste. Even if he joined with you in laying out some common
+      falsehood for burial, you might be sure that before the affair was
+      concluded there would be every prospect of what an Irishman would call "an
+      elegant wake." If you stood up against him on one of his favorite subjects
+      of discussion you must be prepared for hot work. You would have to take
+      off your coat. But when the combat was over he would be the man to help
+      you on with it again; and you would walk home together arm in arm, through
+      the twilight, smoking the pipe of peace. Talk like that does good. It
+      quickens the beating of the heart, and leaves no scars upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this manly spirit, which loves
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "To drink delight of battle with its peers,"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      is a very different thing from that mean, bad, hostile temper which loves
+      to inflict wounds and injuries just for the sake of showing power, and
+      which is never so happy as when it is making some one wince. There are
+      such people in the world, and sometimes their brilliancy tempts us to
+      forget their malignancy. But to have much converse with them is as if we
+      should make playmates of rattlesnakes for their grace of movement and
+      swiftness of stroke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew a man once (I will not name him even with an initial) who was
+      malignant to the core. Learned, industrious, accomplished, he kept all his
+      talents at the service of a perfect genius for hatred. If you crossed his
+      path but once, he would never cease to curse you. The grave might close
+      over you, but he would revile your epitaph and mock at your memory. It was
+      not even necessary that you should do anything to incur his enmity. It was
+      enough to be upright and sincere and successful, to waken the wrath of
+      this Shimei. Integrity was an offence to him, and excellence of any kind
+      filled him with spleen. There was no good cause within his horizon that he
+      did not give a bad word to, and no decent man in the community whom he did
+      not try either to use or to abuse. To listen to him or to read what he had
+      written was to learn to think a little worse of every one that he
+      mentioned, and worst of all of him. He had the air of a gentleman, the
+      vocabulary of a scholar, the style of a Junius, and the heart of a
+      Thersites.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Talk, in such company, is impossible. The sense of something evil, lurking
+      beneath the play of wit, is like the knowledge that there are snakes in
+      the grass. Every step must be taken with fear. But the real pleasure of a
+      walk through the meadow comes from the feeling of security, of ease, of
+      safe and happy abandon to the mood of the moment. This ungirdled and
+      unguarded felicity in mutual discourse depends, after all, upon the
+      assurance of real goodness in your companion. I do not mean a stiff
+      impeccability of conduct. Prudes and Pharisees are poor comrades. I mean
+      simply goodness of heart, the wholesome, generous, kindly quality which
+      thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, hopeth all things, endureth
+      all things, and wisheth well to all men. Where you feel this quality you
+      can let yourself go, in the ease of hearty talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FREEDOM is the second note that Montaigne strikes, and it is essential to
+      the harmony of talking. Very careful, prudent, precise persons are seldom
+      entertaining in familiar speech. They are like tennis players in too fine
+      clothes. They think more of their costume than of the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A mania for absolutely correct pronunciation is fatal. The people who are
+      afflicted with this painful ailment are as anxious about their utterance
+      as dyspeptics about their diet. They move through their sentences as
+      delicately as Agag walked. Their little airs of nicety, their starched
+      cadences and frilled phrases seem as if they had just been taken out of a
+      literary bandbox. If perchance you happen to misplace an accent, you shall
+      see their eyebrows curl up like an interrogation mark, and they will ask
+      you what authority you have for that pronunciation. As if, forsooth, a man
+      could not talk without book-license! As if he must have a permit from some
+      dusty lexicon before he can take a good word into his mouth and speak it
+      out like the people with whom he has lived!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth is that the man who is very particular not to commit himself, in
+      pronunciation or otherwise, and talks as if his remarks were being taken
+      down in shorthand, and shudders at the thought of making a mistake, will
+      hardly be able to open your heart or let out the best that is in his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reserve and precision are a great protection to overrated reputations; but
+      they are death to talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In talk it is not correctness of grammar nor elegance of enunciation that
+      charms us; it is spirit, VERVE, the sudden turn of humour, the keen,
+      pungent taste of life. For this reason a touch of dialect, a flavour of
+      brogue, is delightful. Any dialect is classic that has conveyed beautiful
+      thoughts. Who that ever talked with the poet Tennyson, when he let himself
+      go, over the pipes, would miss the savour of his broad-rolling
+      Lincolnshire vowels, now heightening the humour, now deepening the pathos,
+      of his genuine manly speech? There are many good stories lingering in the
+      memories of those who knew Dr. James McCosh, the late president of
+      Princeton University,&mdash;stories too good, I fear, to get into a
+      biography; but the best of them, in print, would not have the snap and
+      vigour of the poorest of them, in talk, with his own inimitable
+      Scotch-Irish brogue to set it forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A brogue is not a fault. It is a beauty, an heirloom, a distinction. A
+      local accent is like a landed inheritance; it marks a man's place in the
+      world, tells where he comes from. Of course it is possible to have too
+      much of it. A man does not need to carry the soil of his whole farm around
+      with him on his boots. But, within limits, the accent of a native region
+      is delightful. 'T is the flavour of heather in the grouse, the taste of
+      wild herbs and evergreen-buds in the venison. I like the maple-sugar tang
+      of the Vermonter's sharp-edged speech; the round, full-waisted r's of
+      Pennsylvania and Ohio; the soft, indolent vowels of the South. One of the
+      best talkers now living is a schoolmaster from Virginia, Colonel Gordon
+      McCabe. I once crossed the ocean with him on a stream of stories that
+      reached from Liverpool to New York. He did not talk in the least like a
+      book. He talked like a Virginian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Montaigne mentions GAYETY as the third clement of satisfying
+      discourse, I fancy he does not mean mere fun, though that has its value at
+      the right time and place. But there is another quality which is far more
+      valuable and always fit. Indeed it underlies the best fun and makes it
+      wholesome. It is cheerfulness, the temper which makes the best of things
+      and squeezes the little drops of honey even out of thistle-blossoms. I
+      think this is what Montaigne meant. Certainly it is what he had.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cheerfulness is the background of all good talk. A sense of humour is a
+      means of grace. With it I have heard a pleasant soul make even that most
+      perilous of all subjects, the description of a long illness, entertaining.
+      The various physicians moved through the recital as excellent comedians,
+      and the medicines appeared like a succession of timely jests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no occasion upon which this precious element of talkability comes
+      out stronger than when we are on a journey. Travel with a cheerless and
+      easily discouraged companion is an unadulterated misery. But a cheerful
+      comrade is better than a waterproof coat and a foot-warmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I remember riding once with my lady Graygown fifteen miles through a cold
+      rainstorm, in an open buckboard, over the worst road in the world, from
+      LAC A LA BELLE RIVIERE to the Metabetchouan River. Such was the
+      cheerfulness of her ejaculations (the only possible form of talk) that we
+      arrived at our destination as warm and merry as if we had been sitting
+      beside a roaring camp-fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after all, the very best thing in good talk, and the thing that helps
+      it most, is FRIENDSHIP. How it dissolves the barriers that divide us, and
+      loosens all constraint, and diffuses itself like some fine old cordial
+      through all the veins of life&mdash;this feeling that we understand and
+      trust each other, and wish each other heartily well! Everything into which
+      it really comes is good. It transforms letter-writing from a task into a
+      pleasure. It makes music a thousand times more sweet. The people who play
+      and sing not at us, but TO us,&mdash;how delightful it is to listen to
+      them! Yes, there is a talkability that can express itself even without
+      words. There is an exchange of thought and feeling which is happy alike in
+      speech and in silence. It is quietness pervaded with friendship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having come thus far in the exposition of Montaigne, I shall conclude with
+      an opinion of my own, even though I cannot quote a sentence of his to back
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The one person of all the world in whom talkability is most desirable, and
+      talkativeness least endurable, is a wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A WILD STRAWBERRY
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Such is the story of the Boblink; once spiritual, musical,
+     admired, the joy of the meadows, and the favourite bird of
+     spring; finally a gross little sensualist who expiates his
+     sensuality in the larder. His story contains a moral, worthy
+     the attention of all little birds and little boys; warning
+     them to keep to those refined and intellectual pursuits
+     which raised him to so high a pitch of popularity during the
+     early part of his career; but to eschew all tendency to that
+     gross and dissipated indulgence, which brought this mistaken
+     little bird to an untimely end."
+
+     &mdash;WASHINGTON IRVING: Wolfert's Roost.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Swiftwater brook was laughing softly to itself as it ran through a
+      strip of hemlock forest on the edge of the Woodlings' farm. Among the
+      evergreen branches overhead the gayly-dressed warblers,&mdash;little
+      friends of the forest,&mdash;were flitting to and fro, lisping their June
+      songs of contented love: milder, slower, lazier notes than those in which
+      they voiced the amourous raptures of May. Prince's Pine and golden
+      loose-strife and pink laurel and blue hare-bells and purple-fringed
+      orchids, and a score of lovely flowers were all abloom. The late spring
+      had hindered some; the sudden heats of early summer had hastened others;
+      and now they seemed to come out all together, as if Nature had suddenly
+      tilted up her cornucopia and poured forth her treasures in spendthrift
+      joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I lay on a mossy bank at the foot of a tree, filling my pipe after a
+      frugal lunch, and thinking how hard it would be to find in any quarter of
+      the globe a place more fair and fragrant than this hidden vale among the
+      Alleghany Mountains. The perfume of the flowers of the forest is more
+      sweet and subtle than the heavy scent of tropical blossoms. No lily-field
+      in Bermuda could give a fragrance half so magical as the fairy-like odour
+      of these woodland slopes, soft carpeted with the green of glossy vines
+      above whose tiny leaves, in delicate profusion,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "The slight Linnaea hangs its twin-born heads."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Nor are there any birds in Africa, or among the Indian Isles, more
+      exquisite in colour than these miniature warblers, showing their gold and
+      green, their orange and black, their blue and white, against the dark
+      background of the rhododendron thicket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how seldom we put a cup of pleasure to our lips without a dash of
+      bitters, a touch of faultfinding. My drop of discontent, that day, was the
+      thought that the northern woodland, at least in June, yielded no fruit to
+      match its beauty and its fragrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is good browsing among the leaves of the wood and the grasses of the
+      meadow, as every well-instructed angler knows. The bright emerald tips
+      that break from the hemlock and the balsam like verdant flames have a
+      pleasant savour to the tongue. The leaves of the sassafras are full of
+      spice, and the bark of the black-birch twigs holds a fine cordial.
+      Crinkle-root is spicy, but you must partake of it delicately, or it will
+      bite your tongue. Spearmint and peppermint never lose their charm for the
+      palate that still remembers the delights of youth. Wild sorrel has an
+      agreeable, sour, shivery flavour. Even the tender stalk of a young blade
+      of grass is a thing that can be chewed by a person of childlike mind with
+      much contentment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, after all, these are only relishes. They whet the appetite more than
+      they appease it. There should be something to eat, in the June woods, as
+      perfect in its kind, as satisfying to the sense of taste, as the birds and
+      the flowers are to the senses of sight and hearing and smell. Blueberries
+      are good, but they are far away in July. Blackberries are luscious when
+      they are fully ripe, but that will not be until August. Then the fishing
+      will be over, and the angler's hour of need will be past. The one thing
+      that is lacking now beside this mountain stream is some fruit more
+      luscious and dainty than grows in the tropics, to melt upon the lips and
+      fill the mouth with pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that is what these cold northern woods will not offer. They are too
+      reserved, too lofty, too puritanical to make provision for the grosser
+      wants of humanity. They are not friendly to luxury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then, as I shifted my head to find a softer pillow of moss after this
+      philosophic and immoral reflection, Nature gave me her silent answer.
+      Three wild strawberries, nodding on their long stems, hung over my face.
+      It was an invitation to taste and see that they were good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The berries were not the round and rosy ones of the meadow, but the long,
+      slender, dark crimson ones of the forest. One, two, three; no more on that
+      vine; but each one as it touched my lips was a drop of nectar and a crumb
+      of ambrosia, a concentrated essence of all the pungent sweetness of the
+      wildwood, sapid, penetrating, and delicious. I tasted the odour of a
+      hundred blossoms and the green shimmering of innumerable leaves and the
+      sparkle of sifted sunbeams and the breath of highland breezes and the song
+      of many birds and the murmur of flowing streams,&mdash;all in a wild
+      strawberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do you remember, in THE COMPLEAT ANGLER, a remark which Isaak Walton
+      quotes from a certain "Doctor Boteler" about strawberries? "Doubtless,"
+      said that wise old man, "God could have made a better berry, but doubtless
+      God never did."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, the wild strawberry is the one that God made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think it would have been pleasant to know a man who could sum up his
+      reflections upon the important question of berries in such a pithy saying
+      as that which Walton repeats. His tongue must have been in close
+      communication with his heart. He must have had a fair sense of that
+      sprightly humour without which piety itself is often insipid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have often tried to find out more about him, and some day I hope I
+      shall. But up to the present, all that the books have told me of this
+      obscure sage is that his name was William Butler, and that he was an
+      eminent physician, sometimes called "the Aesculapius of his age." He was
+      born at Ipswich, in 1535, and educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge; in the
+      neighbourhood of which town he appears to have spent the most of his life,
+      in high repute as a practitioner of physic. He had the honour of doctoring
+      King James the First after an accident on the hunting field, and must have
+      proved himself a pleasant old fellow, for the king looked him up at
+      Cambridge the next year, and spent an hour in his lodgings. This wise
+      physician also invented a medicinal beverage called "Doctor Butler's Ale."
+      I do not quite like the sound of it, but perhaps it was better than its
+      name. This much is sure, at all events: either it was really a harmless
+      drink, or else the doctor must have confined its use entirely to his
+      patients; for he lived to the ripe age of eighty-three years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between the time when William Butler first needed the services of a
+      physician, in 1535, and the time when he last prescribed for a patient, in
+      1618, there was plenty of trouble in England. Bloody Queen Mary sat on the
+      throne; and there were all kinds of quarrels about religion and politics;
+      and Catholics and Protestants were killing one another in the name of God.
+      After that the red-haired Elizabeth, called the Virgin Queen, wore the
+      crown, and waged triumphant war and tempestuous love. Then fat James of
+      Scotland was made king of Great Britain; and Guy Fawkes tried to blow him
+      up with gunpowder, and failed; and the king tried to blow out all the
+      pipes in England with his COUNTERBLAST AGAINST TOBACCO; but he failed too.
+      Somewhere about that time, early in the seventeenth century, a very small
+      event happened. A new berry was brought over from Virginia,&mdash;FRAGRARIA
+      VIRGINIANA,&mdash;and then, amid wars and rumours of wars, Doctor Butler's
+      happiness was secure. That new berry was so much richer and sweeter and
+      more generous than the familiar FRAGRARIA VESCA of Europe, that it
+      attracted the sincere interest of all persons of good taste. It
+      inaugurated a new era in the history of the strawberry. The long lost
+      masterpiece of Paradise was restored to its true place in the affections
+      of man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Is there not a touch of merry contempt for all the vain controversies and
+      conflicts of humanity in the grateful ejaculation with which the old
+      doctor greeted that peaceful, comforting gift of Providence?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "From this time forward," he seems to say, "the fates cannot beggar me,
+      for I have eaten strawberries. With every Maytime that visits this
+      distracted island, the white blossoms with hearts of gold will arrive. In
+      every June the red drops of pleasant savour will hang among the scalloped
+      leaves. The children of this world may wrangle and give one another wounds
+      that even my good ale cannot cure. Nevertheless, the earth as God created
+      it is a fair dwelling and full of comfort for all who have a quiet mind
+      and a thankful heart. Doubtless God might have made a better world, but
+      doubtless this is the world He made for us; and in it He planted the
+      strawberry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fine old doctor! Brave philosopher of cheerfulness! The Virginian berry
+      should have been brought to England sooner, or you should have lived
+      longer, at least to a hundred years, so that you might have welcomed a
+      score of strawberry-seasons with gratitude and an epigram.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since that time a great change has passed over the fruit which Doctor
+      Butler praised so well. That product of creative art which Divine wisdom
+      did not choose to surpass, human industry has laboured to improve. It has
+      grown immensely in size and substance. The traveller from America who
+      steams into Queenstown harbour in early summer is presented (for a
+      consideration) with a cabbage-leaf full of pale-hued berries, sweet and
+      juicy, any one of which would outbulk a dozen of those that used to grow
+      in Virginia when Pocahontas was smitten with the charms of Captain John
+      Smith. They are superb, those light-tinted Irish strawberries. And there
+      are wonderful new varieties developed in the gardens of New Jersey and
+      Rhode Island, which compare with the ancient berries of the woods and
+      meadows as Leviathan with a minnow. The huge crimson cushions hang among
+      the plants so thick that they seem like bunches of fruit with a few leaves
+      attached for ornament. You can satisfy your hunger in such a berry-patch
+      in ten minutes, while out in the field you must pick for half an hour, and
+      in the forest thrice as long, before you can fill a small tin cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, after all, it is questionable whether men have really bettered God's
+      CHEF D'OEUVRE in the berry line. They have enlarged it and made it more
+      plentiful and more certain in its harvest. But sweeter, more fragrant,
+      more poignant in its flavour? No. The wild berry still stands first in its
+      subtle gusto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Size is not the measure of excellence. Perfection lies in quality, not in
+      quantity. Concentration enhances pleasure, gives it a point so that it
+      goes deeper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Is not a ten-inch trout better than a ten-foot sturgeon? I would rather
+      read a tiny essay by Charles Lamb than a five-hundred page libel on life
+      by a modern British novelist who shall be nameless. Flavour is the
+      priceless quality. Style is the thing that counts and is remembered, in
+      literature, in art, and in berries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No JOCUNDA, nor TRIUMPH, nor VICTORIA, nor any other high-titled fruit
+      that ever took the first prize at an agricultural fair, is half so
+      delicate and satisfying as the wild strawberry that dropped into my mouth,
+      under the hemlock tree, beside the Swiftwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A touch of surprise is essential to perfect sweetness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To get what you have been wishing for is pleasant; but to get what you
+      have not been sure of, makes the pleasure tingle. A new door of happiness
+      is opened when you go out to hunt for something and discover it with your
+      own eyes. But there is an experience even better than that. When you have
+      stupidly forgotten (or despondently forgone) to look about you for the
+      unclaimed treasures and unearned blessings which are scattered along the
+      by-ways of life, then, sometimes by a special mercy, a small sample of
+      them is quietly laid before you so that you cannot help seeing it, and it
+      brings you back to a sense of the joyful possibilities of living.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How full of enjoyment is the search after wild things,&mdash;wild birds,
+      wild flowers, wild honey, wild berries! There was a country club on Storm
+      King Mountain, above the Hudson River, where they used to celebrate a
+      festival of flowers every spring. Men and women who had conservatories of
+      their own, full of rare plants and costly orchids, came together to admire
+      the gathered blossoms of the woodlands and meadows. But the people who had
+      the best of the entertainment were the boys and girls who wandered through
+      the thickets and down the brooks, pushed their way into the tangled copses
+      and crept venturesomely across the swamps, to look for the flowers. Some
+      of the seekers may have had a few gray hairs; but for that day at least
+      they were all boys and girls. Nature was as young as ever, and they were
+      all her children. Hand touched hand without a glove. The hidden blossoms
+      of friendship unfolded. Laughter and merry shouts and snatches of
+      half-forgotten song rose to the lips. Gay adventure sparkled in the air.
+      School was out and nobody listened for the bell. It was just a day to
+      live, and be natural, and take no thought for the morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is great luck in this affair of looking for flowers. I do not see
+      how any one who is prejudiced against games of chance can consistently
+      undertake it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my own part, I approve of garden flowers because they are so orderly
+      and so certain; but wild flowers I love, just because there is so much
+      chance about them. Nature is all in favour of certainty in great laws and
+      of uncertainty in small events. You cannot appoint the day and the place
+      for her flower-shows. If you happen to drop in at the right moment she
+      will give you a free admission. But even then it seems as if the table of
+      beauty had been spread for the joy of a higher visitor, and in obedience
+      to secret orders which you have not heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Have you ever found the fringed gentian?
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          "Just before the snows,
+     There came a purple creature
+      That lavished all the hill:
+     And summer hid her forehead,
+      And mockery was still.
+
+     The frosts were her condition:
+      The Tyrian would not come
+     Until the North evoked her,&mdash;
+      'Creator, shall I bloom?'"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There are strange freaks of fortune in the finding of wild flowers, and
+      curious coincidences which make us feel as if some one were playing
+      friendly tricks on us. I remember reading, one evening in May, a passage
+      in a good book called THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS, in which Colonel
+      Higginson describes the singular luck that a friend of his enjoyed, year
+      after year, in finding the rare blossoms of the double rueanemone. It
+      seems that this man needed only to take a walk in the suburbs of any town,
+      and he would come upon a bed of these flowers, without effort or design. I
+      envied him his good fortune, for I had never discovered even one of them.
+      But the next morning, as I strolled out to fish the Swiftwater, down below
+      Billy Lerns's spring-house I found a green bank in the shadow of the wood
+      all bespangled with tiny, trembling, twofold stars,&mdash;double
+      rueanemones, for luck! It was a favourable omen, and that day I came home
+      with a creel full of trout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The theory that Adam lived out in the woods for some time before he was
+      put into the garden of Eden "to dress it and to keep it" has an air of
+      probability. How else shall we account for the arboreal instincts that
+      cling to his posterity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a wilding strain in our blood that all the civilization in the
+      world will not eradicate. I never knew a real boy&mdash;or, for that
+      matter, a girl worth knowing&mdash;who would not rather climb a tree, any
+      day, than walk up a golden stairway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a touch of this instinct, I suppose, that makes it more delightful
+      to fish in the most insignificant of free streams than in a carefully
+      stocked and preserved pond, where the fish are brought up by hand and fed
+      on minced liver. Such elaborate precautions to ensure good luck extract
+      all the spice from the sport of angling. Casting the fly in such a pond,
+      if you hooked a fish, you might expect to hear the keeper say, "Ah, that
+      is Charles, we will play him and put him back, if you please, sir; for the
+      master is very fond of him,"&mdash;or, "Now you have got hold of Edward;
+      let us land him and keep him; he is three years old this month, and just
+      ready to be eaten." It would seem like taking trout out of cold storage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who could find any pleasure in angling for the tame carp in the fish-pool
+      of Fontainebleau? They gather at the marble steps, those venerable,
+      courtly fish, to receive their rations; and there are veterans among them,
+      in ancient livery, with fringes of green moss on their shoulders, who
+      could tell you pretty tales of being fed by the white hands of maids of
+      honour, or even of nibbling their crumbs of bread from the jewelled
+      fingers of a princess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no sport in bringing pets to the table. It may be necessary
+      sometimes; but the true sportsman would always prefer to leave the
+      unpleasant task of execution to menial hands, while he goes out into the
+      wild country to capture his game by his own skill,&mdash;if he has good
+      luck. I would rather run some risk in this enterprise (even as the young
+      Tobias did, when the voracious pike sprang at him from the waters of the
+      Tigris, and would have devoured him but for the friendly instruction of
+      the piscatory Angel, who taught Tobias how to land the monster),&mdash;I
+      would far rather take any number of chances in my sport than have it
+      domesticated to the point of dulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trim plantations of trees which are called "forests" in certain parts
+      of Europe&mdash;scientifically pruned and tended, counted every year by
+      uniformed foresters, and defended against all possible depredations&mdash;are
+      admirable and useful in their way; but they lack the mystic enchantment of
+      the fragments of native woodland which linger among the Adirondacks and
+      the White Mountains, or the vast, shaggy, sylvan wildernesses which hide
+      the lakes and rivers of Canada. These Laurentian Hills lie in No Man's
+      Land. Here you do not need to keep to the path, for there is none. You may
+      make your own trail, whithersoever fancy leads you; and at night you may
+      pitch your tent under any tree that looks friendly and firm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, if anywhere, you shall find Dryads, and Naiads, and Oreads. And if
+      you chance to see one, by moonlight, combing her long hair beside the
+      glimmering waterfall, or slipping silently, with gleaming shoulders,
+      through the grove of silver birches, you may call her by the name that
+      pleases you best. She is all your own discovery. There is no social
+      directory in the wilderness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One side of our nature, no doubt, finds its satisfaction in the regular,
+      the proper, the conventional. But there is another side of our nature,
+      underneath, that takes delight in the strange, the free, the spontaneous.
+      We like to discover what we call a law of Nature, and make our
+      calculations about it, and harness the force which lies behind it for our
+      own purposes. But we taste a different kind of joy when an event occurs
+      which nobody has foreseen or counted upon. It seems like an evidence that
+      there is something in the world which is alive and mysterious and
+      untrammelled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weather-prophet tells us of an approaching storm. It comes according
+      to the programme. We admire the accuracy of the prediction, and
+      congratulate ourselves that we have such a good meteorological service.
+      But when, perchance, a bright, crystalline piece of weather arrives
+      instead of the foretold tempest, do we not feel a secret sense of pleasure
+      which goes beyond our mere comfort in the sunshine? The whole affair is
+      not as easy as a sum in simple addition, after all,&mdash;at least not
+      with our present knowledge. It is a good joke on the Weather Bureau. "Aha,
+      Old Probabilities!" we say, "you don't know it all yet; there are still
+      some chances to be taken!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some day, I suppose, all things in the heavens above, and in the earth
+      beneath, and in the hearts of the men and women who dwell between, will be
+      investigated and explained. We shall live a perfectly ordered life, with
+      no accidents, happy or unhappy. Everybody will act according to rule, and
+      there will be no dotted lines on the map of human existence, no regions
+      marked "unexplored." Perhaps that golden age of the machine will come, but
+      you and I will hardly live to see it. And if that seems to you a matter
+      for tears, you must do your own weeping, for I cannot find it in my heart
+      to add a single drop of regret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The results of education and social discipline in humanity are fine. It is
+      a good thing that we can count upon them. But at the same time let us
+      rejoice in the play of native traits and individual vagaries. Cultivated
+      manners are admirable, yet there is a sudden touch of inborn grace and
+      courtesy that goes beyond them all. No array of accomplishments can rival
+      the charm of an unsuspected gift of nature, brought suddenly to light. I
+      once heard a peasant girl singing down the Traunthal, and the echo of her
+      song outlives, in the hearing of my heart, all memories of the grand
+      opera.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The harvest of the gardens and the orchards, the result of prudent
+      planting and patient cultivation, is full of satisfaction. We anticipate
+      it in due season, and when it comes we fill our mouths and are grateful.
+      But pray, kind Providence, let me slip over the fence out of the garden
+      now and then, to shake a nut-tree that grows untended in the wood. Give me
+      liberty to put off my black coat for a day, and go a-fishing on a free
+      stream, and find by chance a wild strawberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LOVERS AND LANDSCAPE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "He insisted that the love that was of real value in the world was n't
+      interesting, and that the love that was interesting was n't always
+      admirable. Love that happened to a person like the measles or fits, and
+      was really of no particular credit to itself or its victims, was the sort
+      that got into the books and was made much of; whereas the kind that was
+      attained by the endeavour of true souls, and that had wear in it, and that
+      made things go right instead of tangling them up, was too much like duty
+      to make satisfactory reading for people of sentiment."&mdash;E. S. MARTIN:
+      My Cousin Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.
+      The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first day of spring is due to arrive, if the calendar does not break
+      down, about the twenty-first of March, when the earth turns the corner of
+      Sun Alley and starts for Summer Street. But the first spring day is not on
+      the time-table at all. It comes when it is ready, and in the latitude of
+      New York this is usually not till after All Fools' Day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About this time,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "When chinks in April's windy dome
+      Let through a day of June,
+      And foot and thought incline to roam,
+      And every sound's a tune,"&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      it is the habit of the angler who lives in town to prepare for the labours
+      of the approaching season by longer walks or bicycle-rides in the parks,
+      or along the riverside, or in the somewhat demoralized Edens of the
+      suburbs. In the course of these vernal peregrinations and circumrotations,
+      I observe that lovers of various kinds begin to occupy a notable place in
+      the landscape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The burnished dove puts a livelier iris around his neck, and practises
+      fantastic bows and amourous quicksteps along the verandah of the
+      pigeon-house and on every convenient roof. The young male of the human
+      species, less gifted in the matter of rainbows, does his best with a gay
+      cravat, and turns the thoughts which circulate above it towards the
+      securing or propitiating of a best girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The objects of these more or less brilliant attentions, doves and girls,
+      show a becoming reciprocity, and act in a way which leads us to infer (so
+      far as inferences hold good in the mysterious region of female conduct)
+      that they are not seriously displeased. To a rightly tempered mind,
+      pleasure is a pleasant sight. And the philosophic observer who could look
+      upon this spring spectacle of the lovers with any but friendly feelings
+      would be indeed what the great Dr. Samuel Johnson called "a person not to
+      be envied."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far be it from me to fall into such a desiccated and supercilious mood. My
+      small olive-branch of fancy will be withered, in truth, and ready to drop
+      budless from the tree, when I cease to feel a mild delight in the billings
+      and cooings of the little birds that separate from the flocks to fly
+      together in pairs, or in the uninstructive but mutually satisfactory
+      converse which Strephon holds with Chloe while they dally along the
+      primrose path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am glad that even the stony and tumultuous city affords some
+      opportunities for these amiable observations. In the month of April there
+      is hardly a clump of shrubbery in the Central Park which will not serve as
+      a trysting-place for yellow warblers and catbirds just home from their
+      southern tours. At the same time, you shall see many a bench, designed for
+      the accommodation of six persons, occupied at the sunset hour by only two,
+      and apparently so much too small for them that they cannot avoid a little
+      crowding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These are infallible signs. Taken in conjunction with the eruption of tops
+      and marbles among the small boys, and the purchase of fishing-tackle and
+      golf-clubs by the old boys, they certify us that the vernal equinox has
+      arrived, not only in the celestial regions, but also in the heart of man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have been reflecting of late upon the relation of lovers to the
+      landscape, and questioning whether art has given it quite the same place
+      as that which belongs to it in nature. In fiction, for example, and in the
+      drama, and in music, I have some vague misgivings that romantic love has
+      come to hold a more prominent and a more permanent position than it fills
+      in real life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is dangerous ground to venture upon, even in the most modest and
+      deprecatory way. The man who expresses an opinion, or even a doubt, on
+      this subject, contrary to the ruling traditions, will have a swarm of
+      angry critics buzzing about him. He will be called a heretic, a heathen, a
+      cold-blooded freak of nature. As for the woman who hesitates to subscribe
+      all the thirty-nine articles of romantic love, if such a one dares to put
+      her reluctance into words, she is certain to be accused either of
+      unwomanly ambition or of feminine disappointment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us make haste, then, to get back for safety to the ornithological
+      aspect of the subject. Here there can be no penalties for heresy. And here
+      I make bold to avow my conviction that the pairing season is not the only
+      point of interest in the life of the birds; nor is the instinct by which
+      they mate altogether and beyond comparison the noblest passion that stirs
+      their feathered breasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'T is true, the time of mating is their prettiest season; but it is very
+      short. How little we should know of the drama of their airy life if we had
+      eyes only for this brief scene! Their finest qualities come out in the
+      patient cares that protect the young in the nest, in the varied struggles
+      for existence through the changing year, and in the incredible heroisms of
+      the annual migrations. Herein is a parable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be observed further, without fear of rebuke, that the behaviour of
+      the different kinds of birds during the prevalence of romantic love is not
+      always equally above reproach. The courtship of English sparrows&mdash;blustering,
+      noisy, vulgar&mdash;is a sight to offend the taste of every gentle
+      on-looker. Some birds reiterate and vociferate their love-songs in a
+      fashion that displays their inconsiderateness as well as their ignorance
+      of music. This trait is most marked in domestic fowls. There was a
+      guinea-cock, once, that chose to do his wooing close under the window of a
+      farm-house where I was lodged. He had no regard for my hours of sleep or
+      meditation. His amatory click-clack prevented the morning and wrecked the
+      tranquillity of the evening. It was odious, brutal,&mdash;worse, it was
+      absolutely thoughtless. Herein is another parable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us admit cheerfully that lovers have a place in the landscape and lend
+      a charm to it. This does not mean that they are to take up all the room
+      there is. Suppose, for example, that a pair of them, on Goat Island, put
+      themselves in such a position as to completely block out your view of
+      Niagara. You cannot regard them with gratitude. They even become a little
+      tedious. Or suppose that you are visiting at a country-house, and you find
+      that you must not enjoy the moonlight on the verandah because Augustus and
+      Amanda are murmuring in one corner, and that you must not go into the
+      garden because Louis and Lizzie are there, and that you cannot have a sail
+      on the lake because Richard and Rebecca have taken the boat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course, unless you happen to be a selfish old curmudgeon, you rejoice,
+      by sympathy, in the happiness of these estimable young people. But you
+      fail to see why it should cover so much ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why should they not pool their interests, and all go out in the boat, or
+      all walk in the garden, or all sit on the verandah? Then there would be
+      room for somebody else about the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In old times you could rely upon lovers for retirement. But nowadays their
+      role seems to be a bold ostentation of their condition. They rely upon
+      other people to do the timid, shrinking part. Society, in America, is
+      arranged principally for their convenience; and whatever portion of the
+      landscape strikes their fancy, they preempt and occupy. All this goes upon
+      the presumption that romantic love is really the only important interest
+      in life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This train of thought was illuminated, the other night, by an incident
+      which befell me at a party. It was an assembly of men, drawn together by
+      their common devotion to the sport of canoeing. There were only three or
+      four of the gentler sex present (as honorary members), and only one of
+      whom it could be suspected that she was at that time a victim or an object
+      of the tender passion. In the course of the evening, by way of diversion
+      to our disputations on keels and centreboards, canvas and birch-bark,
+      cedar-wood and bass-wood, paddles and steering-gear, a fine young Apollo,
+      with a big, manly voice, sang us a few songs. But he did not chant the
+      joys of weathering a sudden squall, or running a rapid feather-white with
+      foam, or floating down a long, quiet, elm-bowered river. Not all. His
+      songs were full of sighs and yearnings, languid lips and sheep's-eyes. His
+      powerful voice informed us that crowns of thorns seemed like garlands of
+      roses, and kisses were as sweet as samples of heaven, and various other
+      curious sensations were experienced; and at the end of every stanza the
+      reason was stated, in tones of thunder&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Because I love you, dear."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Even if true, it seemed inappropriate. How foolish the average audience in
+      a drawing-room looks while it is listening to passionate love-ditties! And
+      yet I suppose the singer chose these songs, not from any malice
+      aforethought, but simply because songs of this kind are so abundant that
+      it is next to impossible to find anything else in the shops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In regard to novels, the situation is almost as discouraging. Ten
+      love-stories are printed to one of any other kind. We have a standing
+      invitation to consider the tribulations and difficulties of some young man
+      or young woman in finding a mate. It must be admitted that the subject has
+      its capabilities of interest. Nature has her uses for the lover, and she
+      gives him an excellent part to play in the drama of life. But is this
+      tantamount to saying that his interest is perennial and all-absorbing, and
+      that his role on the stage is the only one that is significant and
+      noteworthy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Life is much too large to be expressed in the terms of a single passion.
+      Friendship, patriotism, parental tenderness, filial devotion, the ardour
+      of adventure, the thirst for knowledge, the ecstasy of religion,&mdash;these
+      all have their dwelling in the heart of man. They mould character. They
+      control conduct. They are stars of destiny shining in the inner firmament.
+      And if art would truly hold the mirror up to nature, it must reflect these
+      greater and lesser lights that rule the day and the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How many of the plays that divert and misinform the modern theatre-goer
+      turn on the pivot of a love-affair, not always pure, but generally simple!
+      And how many of those that are imported from France proceed upon the
+      theory that the Seventh is the only Commandment, and that the principal
+      attraction of life lies in the opportunity of breaking it! The
+      matinee-girl is not likely to have a very luminous or truthful idea of
+      existence floating around in her pretty little head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, after all, the great plays, those that take the deepest hold upon the
+      heart, like HAMLET and KING LEAR, MACBETH and OTHELLO, are not love-plays.
+      And the most charming comedies, like THE WINTER'S TALE, and THE RIVALS,
+      and RIP VAN WINKLE, are chiefly memorable for other things than
+      love-scenes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even in novels, love shows at its best when it does not absorb the whole
+      plot. LORNA DOONE is a lovers' story, but there is a blessed minimum of
+      spooning in it, and always enough of working and fighting to keep the air
+      clear and fresh. THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, and HYPATIA, and ROMOLA, and THE
+      CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH, and JOHN INGLESANT, and THE THREE MUSKETEERS, and
+      NOTRE DAME, and PEACE AND WAR, and QUO VADIS,&mdash;these are great novels
+      because they are much more than tales of romantic love. As for HENRY
+      ESMOND, (which seems to me the best of all,) certainly "love at first
+      sight" does not play the finest role in that book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are good stories of our own day&mdash;pathetic, humourous,
+      entertaining, powerful&mdash;in which the element of romantic love is
+      altogether subordinate, or even imperceptible. THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM
+      does not owe its deep interest to the engagement of the very charming
+      young people who enliven it. MADAME DELPHINE and OLE 'STRACTED are perfect
+      stories of their kind. I would not barter THE JUNGLE BOOKS for a hundred
+      of THE BRUSHWOOD BOY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth is that love, considered merely as the preference of one person
+      for another of the opposite sex, is not "the greatest thing in the world."
+      It becomes great only when it leads on, as it often does, to heroism and
+      self-sacrifice and fidelity. Its chief value for art (the interpreter)
+      lies not in itself, but in its quickening relation to the other elements
+      of life. It must be seen and shown in its due proportion, and in harmony
+      with the broader landscape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do you believe that in all the world there is only one woman specially
+      created for each man, and that the order of the universe will be
+      hopelessly askew unless these two needles find each other in the haystack?
+      You believe it for yourself, perhaps; but do you believe it for Tom
+      Johnson? You remember what a terrific disturbance he made in the summer of
+      189-, at Bar Harbor, about Ellinor Brown, and how he ran away with her in
+      September. You have also seen them together (occasionally) at Lenox and
+      Newport, since their marriage. Are you honestly of the opinion that if Tom
+      had not married Ellinor, these two young lives would have been a total
+      wreck?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam Smith, in his book on THE MORAL SENTIMENTS, goes so far as to say
+      that "love is not interesting to the observer because it is AN AFFECTION
+      OF THE IMAGINATION, into which it is difficult for a third party to
+      enter." Something of the same kind occurred to me in regard to Tom and
+      Ellinor. Yet I would not have presumed to suggest this thought to either
+      of them. Nor would I have quoted in their hearing the melancholy and
+      frigid prediction of Ralph Waldo Emerson, to the effect that they would
+      some day discover "that all which at first drew them together&mdash;those
+      once sacred features, that magical play of charm&mdash;was deciduous."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DECIDUOUS, indeed? Cold, unpleasant, botanical word! Rather would I
+      prognosticate for the lovers something perennial,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "A sober certainty of waking bliss,"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      to survive the evanescence of love's young dream. Ellinor should turn out
+      to be a woman like the Lady Elizabeth Hastings, of whom Richard Steele
+      wrote that "to love her was a liberal education." Tom should prove that he
+      had in him the lasting stuff of a true man and a hero. Then it would make
+      little difference whether their conjunction had been eternally prescribed
+      in the book of fate or not. It would be evidently a fit match, made on
+      earth and illustrative of heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even in the making of such a match as this, the various stages of
+      attraction, infatuation, and appropriation should not be displayed too
+      prominently before the world, nor treated as events of overwhelming
+      importance and enduring moment. I would not counsel Tom and Ellinor, in
+      the midsummer of their engagement, to have their photographs taken
+      together in affectionate attitudes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pictures of an imaginary kind which deal with the subject of romantic
+      love are, almost without exception, fatuous and futile. The inanely
+      amatory, with their languishing eyes, weary us. The endlessly osculatory,
+      with their protracted salutations, are sickening. Even when an air of
+      sentimental propriety is thrown about them by some such title as "Wedded"
+      or "The Honeymoon," they fatigue us. For the most part, they remind me of
+      the remark which the Commodore made upon a certain painting of Jupiter and
+      lo which hangs in the writing-room of the Contrary Club.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir," said that gently piercing critic, "that picture is equally
+      unsatisfactory to the artist, to the moralist, and to the voluptuary."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, having made a clean breast of my misgivings and reservations
+      on the subject of lovers and landscape, I will now confess that the whole
+      of my doubts do not weigh much against my unreasoned faith in romantic
+      love. At heart I am no infidel, but a most obstinate believer and devotee.
+      My seasons of skepticism are transient. They are connected with a torpid
+      liver and aggravated by confinement to a sedentary life and enforced
+      abstinence from angling. Out-of-doors, I return to a saner and happier
+      frame of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As my wheel rolls along the Riverside Drive in the golden glow of the
+      sunset, I rejoice that the episode of Charles Henry and Matilda Jane has
+      not been omitted from the view. This vast and populous city, with all its
+      passing show of life, would be little better than a waste, howling
+      wilderness if we could not catch a glimpse, now and then, of young people
+      falling in love in the good old-fashioned way. Even on a trout-stream, I
+      have seen nothing prettier than the sight upon which I once came suddenly
+      as I was fishing down the Neversink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A boy was kneeling beside the brook, and a girl was giving him a drink of
+      water out of her rosy hands. They stared with wonder and compassion at the
+      wet and solitary angler, wading down the stream, as if he were some kind
+      of a mild lunatic. But as I glanced discreetly at their small tableau, I
+      was not unconscious of the new joy that came into the landscape with the
+      presence of
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "A lover and his lass."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I knew how sweet the water tasted from that kind of a cup. I also have
+      lived in Arcadia, and have not forgotten the way back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A FATAL SUCCESS
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "What surprises me in her behaviour," said he, "is its
+     thoroughness. Woman seldom does things by halves, but often
+     by doubles."
+
+     &mdash;SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ: The Life of Adam.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Beekman De Peyster was probably the most passionate and triumphant
+      fisherman in the Petrine Club. He angled with the same dash and confidence
+      that he threw into his operations in the stock-market. He was sure to be
+      the first man to get his flies on the water at the opening of the season.
+      And when we came together for our fall meeting, to compare notes of our
+      wanderings on various streams and make up the fish-stories for the year,
+      Beekman was almost always "high hook." We expected, as a matter of course,
+      to hear that he had taken the most and the largest fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was so with everything that he undertook. He was a masterful man. If
+      there was an unusually large trout in a river, Beekman knew about it
+      before any one else, and got there first, and came home with the fish. It
+      did not make him unduly proud, because there was nothing uncommon about
+      it. It was his habit to succeed, and all the rest of us were hardened to
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he married Cornelia Cochrane, we were consoled for our partial loss
+      by the apparent fitness and brilliancy of the match. If Beekman was a
+      masterful man, Cornelia was certainly what you might call a mistressful
+      woman. She had been the head of her house since she was eighteen years
+      old. She carried her good looks like the family plate; and when she came
+      into the breakfast-room and said good-morning, it was with an air as if
+      she presented every one with a check for a thousand dollars. Her tastes
+      were accepted as judgments, and her preferences had the force of laws.
+      Wherever she wanted to go in the summer-time, there the finger of
+      household destiny pointed. At Newport, at Bar Harbour, at Lenox, at
+      Southampton, she made a record. When she was joined in holy wedlock to
+      Beekman De Peyster, her father and mother heaved a sigh of satisfaction,
+      and settled down for a quiet vacation in Cherry Valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in the second summer after the wedding that Beekman admitted to a
+      few of his ancient Petrine cronies, in moments of confidence
+      (unjustifiable, but natural), that his wife had one fault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is not exactly a fault," he said, "not a positive fault, you know. It
+      is just a kind of a defect, due to her education, of course. In everything
+      else she's magnificent. But she does n't care for fishing. She says it's
+      stupid,&mdash;can't see why any one should like the woods,&mdash;calls
+      camping out the lunatic's diversion. It's rather awkward for a man with my
+      habits to have his wife take such a view. But it can be changed by
+      training. I intend to educate her and convert her. I shall make an angler
+      of her yet."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so he did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The new education was begun in the Adirondacks, and the first lesson was
+      given at Paul Smith's. It was a complete failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beekman persuaded her to come out with him for a day on Meacham River, and
+      promised to convince her of the charm of angling. She wore a new gown,
+      fawn-colour and violet, with a picture-hat, very taking. But the Meacham
+      River trout was shy that day; not even Beekman could induce him to rise to
+      the fly. What the trout lacked in confidence the mosquitoes more than made
+      up. Mrs. De Peyster came home much sunburned, and expressed a highly
+      unfavourable opinion of fishing as an amusement and of Meacham River as a
+      resort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The nice people don't come to the Adirondacks to fish," said she; "they
+      come to talk about the fishing twenty years ago. Besides, what do you want
+      to catch that trout for? If you do, the other men will say you bought it,
+      and the hotel will have to put in a new one for the rest of the season."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following year Beekman tried Moosehead Lake. Here he found an
+      atmosphere more favourable to his plan of education. There were a good
+      many people who really fished, and short expeditions in the woods were
+      quite fashionable. Cornelia had a camping-costume of the most approved
+      style made by Dewlap on Fifth Avenue,&mdash;pearl-gray with linings of
+      rose-silk,&mdash;and consented to go with her husband on a trip up Moose
+      River. They pitched their tent the first evening at the mouth of Misery
+      Stream, and a storm came on. The rain sifted through the canvas in a fine
+      spray, and Mrs. De Peyster sat up all night in a waterproof cloak, holding
+      an umbrella. The next day they were back at the hotel in time for lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was horrid," she told her most intimate friend, "perfectly horrid. The
+      idea of sleeping in a shower-bath, and eating your breakfast from a tin
+      plate, just for sake of catching a few silly fish! Why not send your
+      guides out to get them for you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, in spite of this profession of obstinate heresy, Beekman observed
+      with secret joy that there were signs, before the end of the season, that
+      Cornelia was drifting a little, a very little but still perceptibly, in
+      the direction of a change of heart. She began to take an interest, as the
+      big trout came along in September, in the reports of the catches made by
+      the different anglers. She would saunter out with the other people to the
+      corner of the porch to see the fish weighed and spread out on the grass.
+      Several times she went with Beekman in the canoe to Hardscrabble Point,
+      and showed distinct evidences of pleasure when he caught large trout. The
+      last day of the season, when he returned from a successful expedition to
+      Roach River and Lily Bay, she inquired with some particularity about the
+      results of his sport; and in the evening, as the company sat before the
+      great open fire in the hall of the hotel, she was heard to use this
+      information with considerable skill in putting down Mrs. Minot Peabody of
+      Boston, who was recounting the details of her husband's catch at Spencer
+      Pond. Cornelia was not a person to be contented with the back seat, even
+      in fish-stories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Beekman observed these indications he was much encouraged, and
+      resolved to push his educational experiment briskly forward to his
+      customary goal of success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Some things can be done, as well as others," he said in his masterful
+      way, as three of us were walking home together after the autumnal dinner
+      of the Petrine Club, which he always attended as a graduate member. "A
+      real fisherman never gives up. I told you I'd make an angler out of my
+      wife; and so I will. It has been rather difficult. She is 'dour' in
+      rising. But she's beginning to take notice of the fly now. Give me another
+      season, and I'll have her landed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Good old Beekman! Little did he think&mdash;But I must not interrupt the
+      story with moral reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The preparations that he made for his final effort at conversion were
+      thorough and prudent. He had a private interview with Dewlap in regard to
+      the construction of a practical fishing-costume for a lady, which resulted
+      in something more reasonable and workmanlike than had ever been turned out
+      by that famous artist. He ordered from Hook and Catchett a lady's
+      angling-outfit of the most enticing description,&mdash;a split-bamboo rod,
+      light as a girl's wish, and strong as a matron's will; an oxidized silver
+      reel, with a monogram on one side, and a sapphire set in the handle for
+      good luck; a book of flies, of all sizes and colours, with the correct
+      names inscribed in gilt letters on each page. He surrounded his favourite
+      sport with an aureole of elegance and beauty. And then he took Cornelia in
+      September to the Upper Dam at Rangeley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went reluctant. She arrived disgusted. She stayed incredulous. She
+      returned&mdash;Wait a bit, and you shall hear how she returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Upper Dam at Rangeley is the place, of all others in the world, where
+      the lunacy of angling may be seen in its incurable stage. There is a cosy
+      little inn, called a camp, at the foot of a big lake. In front of the inn
+      is a huge dam of gray stone, over which the river plunges into a great
+      oval pool, where the trout assemble in the early fall to perpetuate their
+      race. From the tenth of September to the thirtieth, there is not an hour
+      of the day or night when there are no boats floating on that pool, and no
+      anglers trailing the fly across its waters. Before the late fishermen are
+      ready to come in at midnight, the early fishermen may be seen creeping
+      down to the shore with lanterns in order to begin before cock-crow. The
+      number of fish taken is not large,&mdash;perhaps five or six for the whole
+      company on an average day,&mdash;but the size is sometimes enormous,&mdash;nothing
+      under three pounds is counted,&mdash;and they pervade thought and
+      conversation at the Upper Dam to the exclusion of every other subject.
+      There is no driving, no dancing, no golf, no tennis. There is nothing to
+      do but fish or die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first, Cornelia thought she would choose the latter alternative. But a
+      remark of that skilful and morose old angler, McTurk, which she overheard
+      on the verandah after supper, changed her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Women have no sporting instinct," said he. "They only fish because they
+      see men doing it. They are imitative animals."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That same night she told Beekman, in the subdued tone which the
+      architectural construction of the house imposes upon all confidential
+      communications in the bedrooms, but with resolution in every accent, that
+      she proposed to go fishing with him on the morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But not on that pool, right in front of the house, you understand. There
+      must be some other place, out on the lake, where we can fish for three or
+      four days, until I get the trick of this wobbly rod. Then I'll show that
+      old bear, McTurk, what kind of an animal woman is."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beekman was simply delighted. Five days of diligent practice at the mouth
+      of Mill Brook brought his pupil to the point where he pronounced her safe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course," he said patronizingly, "you have 'nt learned all about it
+      yet. That will take years. But you can get your fly out thirty feet, and
+      you can keep the tip of your rod up. If you do that, the trout will hook
+      himself, in rapid water, eight times out of ten. For playing him, if you
+      follow my directions, you 'll be all right. We will try the pool tonight,
+      and hope for a medium-sized fish."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cornelia said nothing, but smiled and nodded. She had her own thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At about nine o'clock Saturday night, they anchored their boat on the edge
+      of the shoal where the big eddy swings around, put out the lantern and
+      began to fish. Beekman sat in the bow of the boat, with his rod over the
+      left side; Cornelia in the stern, with her rod over the right side. The
+      night was cloudy and very black. Each of them had put on the largest
+      possible fly, one a "Bee-Pond" and the other a "Dragon;" but even these
+      were invisible. They measured out the right length of line, and let the
+      flies drift back until they hung over the shoal, in the curly water where
+      the two currents meet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were three other boats to the left of them. McTurk was their only
+      neighbour in the darkness on the right. Once they heard him swearing
+      softly to himself, and knew that he had hooked and lost a fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Away down at the tail of the pool, dimly visible through the gloom, the
+      furtive fisherman, Parsons, had anchored his boat. No noise ever came from
+      that craft. If he wished to change his position, he did not pull up the
+      anchor and let it down again with a bump. He simply lengthened or
+      shortened his anchor rope. There was no click of the reel when he played a
+      fish. He drew in and paid out the line through the rings by hand, without
+      a sound. What he thought when a fish got away, no one knew, for he never
+      said it. He concealed his angling as if it had been a conspiracy. Twice
+      that night they heard a faint splash in the water near his boat, and twice
+      they saw him put his arm over the side in the darkness and bring it back
+      again very quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's the second fish for Parsons," whispered Beekman, "what a secretive
+      old Fortunatus he is! He knows more about fishing than any man on the
+      pool, and talks less."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cornelia did not answer. Her thoughts were all on the tip of her own rod.
+      About eleven o'clock a fine, drizzling rain set in. The fishing was very
+      slack. All the other boats gave it up in despair; but Cornelia said she
+      wanted to stay out a little longer, they might as well finish up the week.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At precisely fifty minutes past eleven, Beekman reeled up his line, and
+      remarked with firmness that the holy Sabbath day was almost at hand and
+      they ought to go in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not till I 've landed this trout," said Cornelia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What? A trout! Have you got one?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly; I 've had him on for at least fifteen minutes. I 'm playing
+      him Mr. Parsons' way. You might as well light the lantern and get the net
+      ready; he's coming in towards the boat now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beekman broke three matches before he made the lantern burn; and when he
+      held it up over the gunwale, there was the trout sure enough, gleaming
+      ghostly pale in the dark water, close to the boat, and quite tired out. He
+      slipped the net over the fish and drew it in,&mdash;a monster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I 'll carry that trout, if you please," said Cornelia, as they stepped
+      out of the boat; and she walked into the camp, on the last stroke of
+      midnight, with the fish in her hand, and quietly asked for the steelyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eight pounds and fourteen ounces,&mdash;that was the weight. Everybody was
+      amazed. It was the "best fish" of the year. Cornelia showed no sign of
+      exultation, until just as John was carrying the trout to the ice-house.
+      Then she flashed out:&mdash;"Quite a fair imitation, Mr. McTurk,&mdash;is
+      n't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now McTurk's best record for the last fifteen years was seven pounds and
+      twelve ounces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far as McTurk is concerned, this is the end of the story. But not for
+      the De Peysters. I wish it were. Beekman went to sleep that night with a
+      contented spirit. He felt that his experiment in education had been a
+      success. He had made his wife an angler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had indeed, and to an extent which he little suspected. That Upper Dam
+      trout was to her like the first taste of blood to the tiger. It seemed to
+      change, at once, not so much her character as the direction of her vital
+      energy. She yielded to the lunacy of angling, not by slow degrees, (as
+      first a transient delusion, then a fixed idea, then a chronic infirmity,
+      finally a mild insanity,) but by a sudden plunge into the most violent
+      mania. So far from being ready to die at Upper Dam, her desire now was to
+      live there&mdash;and to live solely for the sake of fishing&mdash;as long
+      as the season was open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two hundred and forty hours left to midnight on the thirtieth
+      of September. At least two hundred of these she spent on the pool; and
+      when Beekman was too exhausted to manage the boat and the net and the
+      lantern for her, she engaged a trustworthy guide to take Beekman's place
+      while he slept. At the end of the last day her score was twenty-three,
+      with an average of five pounds and a quarter. His score was nine, with an
+      average of four pounds. He had succeeded far beyond his wildest hopes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next year his success became even more astonishing. They went to the
+      Titan Club in Canada. The ugliest and most inaccessible sheet of water in
+      that territory is Lake Pharaoh. But it is famous for the extraordinary
+      fishing at a certain spot near the outlet, where there is just room enough
+      for one canoe. They camped on Lake Pharaoh for six weeks, by Mrs. De
+      Peyster's command; and her canoe was always the first to reach the
+      fishing-ground in the morning, and the last to leave it in the evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some one asked him, when he returned to the city, whether he had good
+      luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite fair," he tossed off in a careless way; "we took over three hundred
+      pounds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To your own rod?" asked the inquirer, in admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No-o-o," said Beekman, "there were two of us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two of them, also, the following year, when they joined the
+      Natasheebo Salmon Club and fished that celebrated river in Labrador. The
+      custom of drawing lots every night for the water that each member was to
+      angle over the next day, seemed to be especially designed to fit the
+      situation. Mrs. De Peyster could fish her own pool and her husband's too.
+      The result of that year's fishing was something phenomenal. She had a
+      score that made a paragraph in the newspapers and called out editorial
+      comment. One editor was so inadequate to the situation as to entitle the
+      article in which he described her triumph "The Equivalence of Woman." It
+      was well-meant, but she was not at all pleased with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was now not merely an angler, but a "record" angler of the most
+      virulent type. Wherever they went, she wanted, and she got, the pick of
+      the water. She seemed to be equally at home on all kinds of streams, large
+      and small. She would pursue the little mountain-brook trout in the early
+      spring, and the Labrador salmon in July, and the huge speckled trout of
+      the northern lakes in September, with the same avidity and resolution. All
+      that she cared for was to get the best and the most of the fishing at each
+      place where she angled. This she always did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Beekman,&mdash;well, for him there were no more long separations from
+      the partner of his life while he went off to fish some favourite stream.
+      There were no more home-comings after a good day's sport to find her clad
+      in cool and dainty raiment on the verandah, ready to welcome him with
+      friendly badinage. There was not even any casting of the fly around
+      Hardscrabble Point while she sat in the canoe reading a novel, looking up
+      with mild and pleasant interest when he caught a larger fish than usual,
+      as an older and wiser person looks at a child playing some innocent game.
+      Those days of a divided interest between man and wife were gone. She was
+      now fully converted, and more. Beekman and Cornelia were one; and she was
+      the one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last time I saw the De Peysters he was following her along the
+      Beaverkill, carrying a landing-net and a basket, but no rod. She paused
+      for a moment to exchange greetings, and then strode on down the stream. He
+      lingered for a few minutes longer to light a pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, old man," I said, "you certainly have succeeded in making an angler
+      of Mrs. De Peyster."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, indeed," he answered,&mdash;"have n't I?" Then he continued, after a
+      few thoughtful puffs of smoke, "Do you know, I 'm not quite so sure as I
+      used to be that fishing is the best of all sports. I sometimes think of
+      giving it up and going in for croquet."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FISHING IN BOOKS
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "SIMPSON.&mdash;Have you ever seen any American books on angling,
+     Fisher?"
+
+     "FISHER.&mdash;No, I do not think there are any published.
+     Brother Jonathan is not yet sufficiently civilized to
+     produce anything original on the gentle art.  There is good
+     trout-fishing in America, and the streams, which are all
+     free, are much less fished than in our Island, 'from the
+     small number of gentlemen,' as an American writer says, 'who
+     are at leisure to give their time to it.'"
+
+     &mdash;WILLIAM ANDREW CHATTO: The Angler's Souvenir (London,
+     1835).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That wise man and accomplished scholar, Sir Henry Wotton, the friend of
+      Izaak Walton and ambassador of King James I to the republic of Venice, was
+      accustomed to say that "he would rather live five May months than forty
+      Decembers." The reason for this preference was no secret to those who knew
+      him. It had nothing to do with British or Venetian politics. It was simply
+      because December, with all its domestic joys, is practically a dead month
+      in the angler's calendar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His occupation is gone. The better sort of fish are out of season. The
+      trout are lean and haggard: it is no trick to catch them and no treat to
+      eat them. The salmon, all except the silly kelts, have run out to sea, and
+      the place of their habitation no man knoweth. There is nothing for the
+      angler to do but wait for the return of spring, and meanwhile encourage
+      and sustain his patience with such small consolations in kind as a
+      friendly Providence may put within his reach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some solace may be found, on a day of crisp, wintry weather, in the
+      childish diversion of catching pickerel through the ice. This method of
+      taking fish is practised on a large scale and with elaborate machinery by
+      men who supply the market. I speak not of their commercial enterprise and
+      its gross equipage, but of ice-fishing in its more sportive and desultory
+      form, as it is pursued by country boys and the incorrigible village idler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You choose for this pastime a pond where the ice is not too thick, lest
+      the labour of cutting through should be discouraging; nor too thin, lest
+      the chance of breaking in should be embarrassing. You then chop out, with
+      almost any kind of a hatchet or pick, a number of holes in the ice, making
+      each one six or eight inches in diameter, and placing them about five or
+      six feet apart. If you happen to know the course of a current flowing
+      through the pond, or the location of a shoal frequented by minnows, you
+      will do well to keep near it. Over each hole you set a small contrivance
+      called a "tilt-up." It consists of two sticks fastened in the middle, at
+      right angles to each other. The stronger of the two is laid across the
+      opening in the ice. The other is thus balanced above the aperture, with a
+      baited hook and line attached to one end, while the other end is adorned
+      with a little flag. For choice, I would have the flags red. They look
+      gayer, and I imagine they are more lucky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you have thus baited and set your tilt-ups,&mdash;twenty or thirty of
+      them,&mdash;you may put on your skates and amuse yourself by gliding to
+      and fro on the smooth surface of the ice, cutting figures of eight and
+      grapevines and diamond twists, while you wait for the pickerel to begin
+      their part of the performance. They will let you know when they are ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fish, swimming around in the dim depths under the ice, sees one of your
+      baits, fancies it, and takes it in. The moment he tries to run away with
+      it he tilts the little red flag into the air and waves it backward and
+      forward. "Be quick!" he signals all unconsciously; "here I am; come and
+      pull me up!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When two or three flags are fluttering at the same moment, far apart on
+      the pond, you must skate with speed and haul in your lines promptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How hard it is, sometimes, to decide which one you will take first! That
+      flag in the middle of the pond has been waving for at least a minute; but
+      the other, in the corner of the bay, is tilting up and down more
+      violently: it must be a larger fish. Great Dagon! There's another red
+      signal flying, away over by the point! You hesitate, you make a few
+      strokes in one direction, then you whirl around and dart the other way.
+      Meantime one of the tilt-ups, constructed with too short a cross-stick,
+      has been pulled to one side, and disappears in the hole. One pickerel in
+      the pond carries a flag. Another tilt-up ceases to move and falls flat
+      upon the ice. The bait has been stolen. You dash desperately toward the
+      third flag and pull in the only fish that is left,&mdash;probably the
+      smallest of them all!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A surplus of opportunities does not insure the best luck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A room with seven doors&mdash;like the famous apartment in Washington's
+      headquarters at Newburgh&mdash;is an invitation to bewilderment. I would
+      rather see one fair opening in life than be confused by three dazzling
+      chances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a good story about fishing through the ice which formed part of
+      the stock-in-conversation of that ingenious woodsman, Martin Moody,
+      Esquire, of Big Tupper Lake. "'T was a blame cold day," he said, "and the
+      lines friz up stiffer 'n a fence-wire, jus' as fast as I pulled 'em in,
+      and my fingers got so dum' frosted I could n't bait the hooks. But the
+      fish was thicker and hungrier 'n flies in June. So I jus' took a piece of
+      bait and held it over one o' the holes. Every time a fish jumped up to git
+      it, I 'd kick him out on the ice. I tell ye, sir, I kicked out more 'n
+      four hundred pounds of pick'rel that morning. Yaas, 't was a big lot, I
+      'low, but then 't was a cold day! I jus' stacked 'em up solid, like
+      cordwood."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us now leave this frigid subject! Iced fishing is but a chilling and
+      unsatisfactory imitation of real sport. The angler will soon turn from it
+      with satiety, and seek a better consolation for the winter of his
+      discontent in the entertainment of fishing in books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Angling is the only sport that boasts the honour of having given a classic
+      to literature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Izaak Walton's success with THE COMPLEAT ANGLER was a fine illustration of
+      fisherman's luck. He set out, with some aid from an adept in fly-fishing
+      and cookery, named Thomas Barker, to produce a little "discourse of fish
+      and fishing" which should serve as a useful manual for quiet persons
+      inclined to follow the contemplative man's recreation. He came home with a
+      book which has made his name beloved by ten generations of gentle readers,
+      and given him a secure place in the Pantheon of letters,&mdash;not a
+      haughty eminence, but a modest niche, all his own, and ever adorned with
+      grateful offerings of fresh flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was great luck. But it was well-deserved, and therefore it has not
+      been grudged or envied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walton was a man so peaceful and contented, so friendly in his
+      disposition, and so innocent in all his goings, that only three other
+      writers, so far as I know, have ever spoken ill of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One was that sour-complexioned Cromwellian trooper, Richard Franck, who
+      wrote in 1658 an envious book entitled NORTHERN MEMOIRS, CALCULATED FOR
+      THE MERIDIAN OF SCOTLAND, ETC., TO WHICH IS ADDED THE CONTEMPLATIVE AND
+      PRACTICAL ANGLER. In this book the furious Franck first pays Walton the
+      flattery of imitation, and then further adorns him with abuse, calling THE
+      COMPLEAT ANGLER "an indigested octavo, stuffed with morals from Dubravius
+      and others," and more than hinting that the father of anglers knew little
+      or nothing of "his uncultivated art." Walton was a Churchman and a
+      Loyalist, you see, while Franck was a Commonwealth man and an Independent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second detractor of Walton was Lord Byron, who wrote
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb in his gullet
+      Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But Byron is certainly a poor authority on the quality of mercy. His
+      contempt need not cause an honest man overwhelming distress. I should call
+      it a complimentary dislike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third author who expressed unpleasant sentiments in regard to Walton
+      was Leigh Hunt. Here, again, I fancy that partizan prejudice had something
+      to do with the dislike. Hunt was a radical in politics and religion.
+      Moreover there was a feline strain in his character, which made it
+      necessary for him to scratch somebody now and then, as a relief to his
+      feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walton was a great quoter. His book is not "stuffed," as Franck jealously
+      alleged, but it is certainly well sauced with piquant references to other
+      writers, as early as the author of the Book of Job, and as late as John
+      Dennys, who betrayed to the world THE SECRETS OF ANGLING in 1613. Walton
+      further seasoned his book with fragments of information about fish and
+      fishing, more or less apocryphal, gathered from Aelian, Pliny, Plutarch,
+      Sir Francis Bacon, Dubravius, Gesner, Rondeletius, the learned
+      Aldrovandus, the venerable Bede, the divine Du Bartas, and many others. He
+      borrowed freely for the adornment of his discourse, and did not scorn to
+      make use of what may be called LIVE QUOTATIONS,&mdash;that is to say, the
+      unpublished remarks of his near contemporaries, caught in friendly
+      conversation, or handed down by oral tradition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these various seasonings did not disguise, they only enhanced, the
+      delicate flavour of the dish which he served up to his readers. This was
+      all of his own taking, and of a sweetness quite incomparable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I like a writer who is original enough to water his garden with
+      quotations, without fear of being drowned out. Such men are Charles Lamb
+      and James Russell Lowell and John Burroughs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walton's book is as fresh as a handful of wild violets and sweet lavender.
+      It breathes the odours of the green fields and the woods. It tastes of
+      simple, homely, appetizing things like the "syllabub of new verjuice in a
+      new-made haycock" which the milkwoman promised to give Piscator the next
+      time he came that way. Its music plays the tune of A CONTENTED HEART over
+      and over again without dulness, and charms us into harmony with
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "A noise like the sound of a hidden brook
+      In the leafy month of June,
+      That to the sleeping woods all night
+      Singeth a quiet tune."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Walton has been quoted even more than any of the writers whom he quotes.
+      It would be difficult, even if it were not ungrateful, to write about
+      angling without referring to him. Some pretty saying, some wise reflection
+      from his pages, suggests itself at almost every turn of the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet his book, though it be the best, is not the only readable one that
+      his favourite recreation has begotten. The literature of angling is
+      extensive, as any one may see who will look at the list of the collection
+      presented by Mr. John Bartlett to Harvard University, or study the
+      catalogue of the piscatorial library of Mr. Dean Sage, of Albany, who
+      himself has contributed an admirable book on THE RISTIGOUCHE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor is this literature altogether composed of dry and technical treatises,
+      interesting only to the confirmed anglimaniac, or to the young novice
+      ardent in pursuit of practical information. There is a good deal of juicy
+      reading in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Books about angling should be divided (according to De Quincey's method)
+      into two classes,&mdash;the literature of knowledge, and the literature of
+      power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first class contains the handbooks on rods and tackle, the directions
+      how to angle for different kinds of fish, and the guides to various
+      fishing-resorts. The weakness of these books is that they soon fall out of
+      date, as the manufacture of tackle is improved, the art of angling
+      refined, and the fish in once-famous waters are educated or exterminated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas, how transient is the fashion of this world, even in angling! The old
+      manuals with their precise instruction for trimming and painting
+      trout-rods eighteen feet long, and their painful description of
+      "oyntments" made of nettle-juice, fish-hawk oil, camphor, cat's fat, or
+      assafoedita, (supposed to allure the fish,) are altogether behind the age.
+      Many of the flies described by Charles Cotton and Thomas Barker seem to
+      have gone out of style among the trout. Perhaps familiarity has bred
+      contempt. Generation after generation of fish have seen these same old
+      feathered confections floating on the water, and learned by sharp
+      experience that they do not taste good. The blase trout demand something
+      new, something modern. It is for this reason, I suppose, that an
+      altogether original fly, unheard of, startling, will often do great
+      execution in an over-fished pool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certain it is that the art of angling, in settled regions, is growing more
+      dainty and difficult. You must cast a longer, lighter line; you must use
+      finer leaders; you must have your flies dressed on smaller hooks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And another thing is certain: in many places (described in the ancient
+      volumes) where fish were once abundant, they are now like the shipwrecked
+      sailors in Vergil his Aeneid,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "rari nantes in gurgite vasto."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The floods themselves are also disappearing. Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman
+      was telling me, the other day, of the trout-brook that used to run through
+      the Connecticut village when he nourished a poet's youth. He went back to
+      visit the stream a few years since, and it was gone, literally vanished
+      from the face of earth, stolen to make a watersupply for the town, and
+      used for such base purposes as the washing of clothes and the sprinkling
+      of streets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I remember an expedition with my father, some twenty years ago, to Nova
+      Scotia, whither we set out to realize the hopes kindled by an ANGLER'S
+      GUIDE written in the early sixties. It was like looking for tall clocks in
+      the farmhouses around Boston. The harvest had been well gleaned before our
+      arrival, and in the very place where our visionary author located his most
+      famous catch we found a summer hotel and a sawmill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'T is strange and sad, how many regions there are where "the fishing was
+      wonderful forty years ago"!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second class of angling books&mdash;the literature of power&mdash;includes
+      all (even those written with some purpose of instruction) in which the
+      gentle fascinations of the sport, the attractions of living out-of-doors,
+      the beauties of stream and woodland, the recollections of happy adventure,
+      and the cheerful thoughts that make the best of a day's luck, come clearly
+      before the author's mind and find some fit expression in his words. Of
+      such books, thank Heaven, there is a plenty to bring a Maytide charm and
+      cheer into the fisherman's dull December. I will name, by way of random
+      tribute from a grateful but unmethodical memory, a few of these
+      consolatory volumes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First of all comes a family of books that were born in Scotland and smell
+      of the heather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever a Scotchman's conscience permits him to do, is likely to be done
+      with vigour and a fiery mind. In trade and in theology, in fishing and in
+      fighting, he is all there and thoroughly kindled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is an old-fashioned book called THE MOOR AND THE LOCH, by John
+      Colquhoun, which is full of contagious enthusiasm. Thomas Tod Stoddart was
+      a most impassioned angler, (though over-given to strong language,) and in
+      his ANGLING REMINISCENCES he has touched the subject with a happy hand,&mdash;happiest
+      when he breaks into poetry and tosses out a song for the fisherman.
+      Professor John Wilson of the University of Edinburgh held the chair of
+      Moral Philosophy in that institution, but his true fame rests on his
+      well-earned titles of A. M. and F. R. S.,&mdash;Master of Angling, and
+      Fisherman Royal of Scotland. His RECREATIONS OF CHRISTOPHER NORTH, albeit
+      their humour is sometimes too boisterously hammered in, are genial and
+      generous essays, overflowing with passages of good-fellowship and
+      pedestrian fancy. I would recommend any person in a dry and melancholy
+      state of mind to read his paper on "Streams," in the first volume of
+      ESSAYS CRITICAL AND IMAGINATIVE. But it must be said, by way of warning to
+      those with whom dryness is a matter of principle, that all Scotch
+      fishing-books are likely to be sprinkled with Highland Dew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among English anglers, Sir Humphry Davy is one of whom Christopher North
+      speaks rather slightingly. Nevertheless his SALMONIA is well worth
+      reading, not only because it was written by a learned man, but because it
+      exhales the spirit of cheerful piety and vital wisdom. Charles Kingsley
+      was another great man who wrote well about angling. His CHALK-STREAM
+      STUDIES are clear and sparkling. They cleanse the mind and refresh the
+      heart and put us more in love with living. Of quite a different style are
+      the MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR AN ANGLER, AND MISERIES OF FISHING, which were
+      written by Richard Penn, a grandson of the founder of Pennsylvania. This
+      is a curious and rare little volume, professing to be a compilation from
+      the "Common Place Book of the Houghton Fishing Club," and dealing with the
+      subject from a Pickwickian point of view. I suppose that William Penn
+      would have thought his grandson a frivolous writer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he could not have entertained such an opinion of the Honourable Robert
+      Boyle, of whose OCCASIONAL REFLECTIONS no less than twelve discourses
+      treat "of Angling Improved to Spiritual Uses." The titles of some of these
+      discourses are quaint enough to quote. "Upon the being called upon to rise
+      early on a very fair morning." "Upon the mounting, singing, and lighting
+      of larks." "Upon fishing with a counterfeit fly." "Upon a danger arising
+      from an unseasonable contest with the steersman." "Upon one's drinking
+      water out of the brim of his hat." With such good texts it is easy to
+      endure, and easier still to spare, the sermons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Englishmen carry their love of travel into their anglimania, and many of
+      their books describe fishing adventures in foreign parts. RAMBLES WITH A
+      FISHING-ROD, by E. S. Roscoe, tells of happy days in the Salzkammergut and
+      the Bavarian Highlands and Normandy. FISH-TAILS AND A FEW OTHERS, by
+      Bradnock Hall, contains some delightful chapters on Norway. THE ROD IN
+      INDIA, by H. S. Thomas, narrates wonderful adventures with the Mahseer and
+      the Rohu and other pagan fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, after all, I like the English angler best when he travels at home,
+      and writes of dry-fly fishing in the Itchen or the Test, or of wet-fly
+      fishing in Northumberland or Sutherlandshire. There is a fascinating
+      booklet that appeared quietly, some years ago, called AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S
+      DAYS IN DOVE DALE. It runs as easily and merrily and kindly as a little
+      river, full of peace and pure enjoyment. Other books of the same quality
+      have since been written by the same pen,&mdash;DAYS IN CLOVER, FRESH
+      WOODS, BY MEADOW AND STREAM. It is no secret, I believe, that the author
+      is Mr. Edward Marston, the senior member of a London publishing-house. But
+      he still clings to his retiring pen-name of "The Amateur Angler," and
+      represents himself, by a graceful fiction, as all unskilled in the art. An
+      instance of similar modesty is found in Mr. Andrew Lang, who entitles the
+      first chapter of his delightful ANGLING SKETCHES (without which no
+      fisherman's library is complete), "Confessions of a Duffer." This an
+      engaging liberty which no one else would dare to take.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The best English fish-story pure and simple, that I know, is "Crocker's
+      Hole," by H. D. Black-more, the creator of LORNA DOONE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us turn now to American books about angling. Of these the merciful
+      dispensations of Providence have brought forth no small store since Mr.
+      William Andrew Chatto made the ill-natured remark which is pilloried at
+      the head of this chapter. By the way, it seems that Mr. Chatto had never
+      heard of "The Schuylkill Fishing Company," which was founded on that
+      romantic stream near Philadelphia in 1732, nor seen the AUTHENTIC
+      HISTORICAL MEMOIR of that celebrated and amusing society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry for the man who cannot find pleasure in reading the appendix of
+      THE AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK, by Thaddeus Norris; or the discursive pages of
+      Frank Forester's FISH AND FISHING; or the introduction and notes of that
+      unexcelled edition of Walton which was made by the Reverend Doctor George
+      W. Bethune; or SUPERIOR FISHING and GAME FISH OF THE NORTH, by Mr. Robert
+      B. Roosevelt; or Henshall's BOOK OF THE BLACK BASS; or the admirable
+      disgressions of Mr. Henry P. Wells, in his FLY-RODS AND FLY-TACKLE, and
+      THE AMERICAN SALMON ANGLER. Dr. William C. Prime has never put his
+      profound knowledge of the art of angling into a manual of technical
+      instruction; but he has written of the delights of the sport in OWL CREEK
+      LETTERS, and in I GO A-FISHING, and in some of the chapters of ALONG NEW
+      ENGLAND ROADS and AMONG NEW ENGLAND HILLS, with a persuasive skill that
+      has created many new anglers, and made many old ones grateful. It is a
+      fitting coincidence of heredity that his niece, Mrs. Annie Trumbull
+      Slosson, is the author of the most tender and pathetic of all angling
+      stories, FISHIN' JIMMY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it is not only in books written altogether from his peculiar point of
+      view and to humour his harmless insanity, that the angler may find
+      pleasant reading about his favourite pastime. There are excellent bits of
+      fishing scattered all through the field of good literature. It seems as if
+      almost all the men who could write well had a friendly feeling for the
+      contemplative sport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Plutarch, in THE LIVES OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS AND ROMANS, tells a capital
+      fish-story of the manner in which the Egyptian Cleopatra fooled that
+      far-famed Roman wight, Marc Antony, when they were angling together on the
+      Nile. As I recall it, from a perusal in early boyhood, Antony was having
+      very bad luck indeed; in fact he had taken nothing, and was sadly put out
+      about it. Cleopatra, thinking to get a rise out of him, secretly told one
+      of her attendants to dive over the opposite side of the barge and fasten a
+      salt fish to the Roman general's hook. The attendant was much pleased with
+      this commission, and, having executed it, proceeded to add a fine stroke
+      of his own; for when he had made the fish fast on the hook, he gave a
+      great pull to the line and held on tightly. Antony was much excited and
+      began to haul violently at his tackle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jupiter!" he exclaimed, "it was long in coming, but I have a colossal
+      bite now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have a care," said Cleopatra, laughing behind her sunshade, "or he will
+      drag you into the water. You must give him line when he pulls hard."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a denarius will I give!" rudely responded Antony. "I mean to have
+      this halibut or Hades!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the man under the boat, being out of breath, let the line
+      go, and Antony, falling backward, drew up the salted herring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take that fish off the hook, Palinurus," he proudly said. "It is not as
+      large as I thought, but it looks like the oldest one that has been caught
+      to-day."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such, in effect, is the tale narrated by the veracious Plutarch. And if
+      any careful critic wishes to verify my quotation from memory, he may
+      compare it with the proper page of Langhorne's translation; I think it is
+      in the second volume, near the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Walter Scott, who once described himself as
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "No fisher,
+      But a well-wisher
+      To the game,"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      has an amusing passage of angling in the third chapter of REDGAUNTLET.
+      Darsie Latimer is relating his adventures in Dumfriesshire. "By the way,"
+      says he, "old Cotton's instructions, by which I hoped to qualify myself
+      for the gentle society of anglers, are not worth a farthing for this
+      meridian. I learned this by mere accident, after I had waited four mortal
+      hours. I shall never forget an impudent urchin, a cowherd, about twelve
+      years old, without either brogue or bonnet, barelegged, with a very
+      indifferent pair of breeches,&mdash;how the villain grinned in scorn at my
+      landing-net, my plummet, and the gorgeous jury of flies which I had
+      assembled to destroy all the fish in the river. I was induced at last to
+      lend the rod to the sneering scoundrel, to see what he would make of it;
+      and he not only half-filled my basket in an hour, but literally taught me
+      to kill two trouts with my own hand."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus ancient and well-authenticated is the superstition of the angling
+      powers of the barefooted country-boy,&mdash;in fiction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, in that valuable but over-capitalized book, MY
+      NOVEL, makes use of Fishing for Allegorical Purposes. The episode of John
+      Burley and the One-eyed Perch not only points a Moral but adorns the Tale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the works of R. D. Blackmore, angling plays a less instructive but a
+      pleasanter part. It is closely interwoven with love. There is a magical
+      description of trout-fishing on a meadow-brook in ALICE LORRAINE. And who
+      that has read LORNA DOONE, (pity for the man or woman that knows not the
+      delight of that book!) can ever forget how young John Ridd dared his way
+      up the gliddery water-slide, after loaches, and found Lorna in a fair
+      green meadow adorned with flowers, at the top of the brook?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I made a little journey into the Doone Country once, just to see that
+      brook and to fish in it. The stream looked smaller, and the water-slide
+      less terrible, than they seemed in the book. But it was a mighty pretty
+      place after all; and I suppose that even John Ridd, when he came back to
+      it in after years, found it shrunken a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the streams were larger in our boyhood than they are now, except,
+      perhaps, that which flows from the sweetest spring of all, the fountain of
+      love, which John Ridd discovered beside the Bagworthy River,&mdash;and I,
+      on the willow-shaded banks of the Patapsco, where the Baltimore girls fish
+      for gudgeons,&mdash;and you? Come, gentle reader, is there no stream whose
+      name is musical to you, because of a hidden spring of love that you once
+      found on its shore? The waters of that fountain never fail, and in them
+      alone we taste the undiminished fulness of immortal youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stories of William Black are enlivened with fish, and he knew, better
+      than most men, how they should be taken. Whenever he wanted to get two
+      young people engaged to each other, all other devices failing, he sent
+      them out to angle together. If it had not been for fishing, everything in
+      A PRINCESS OF THULE and WHITE HEATHER would have gone wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even men who have been disappointed in love may angle for solace or
+      diversion. I have known some old bachelors who fished excellently well;
+      and others I have known who could find, and give, much pleasure in a day
+      on the stream, though they had no skill in the sport. Of this class was
+      Washington Irving, with an extract from whose SKETCH BOOK I will bring
+      this rambling dissertation to an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Our first essay," says he, "was along a mountain brook among the
+      highlands of the Hudson; a most unfortunate place for the execution of
+      those piscatory tactics which had been invented along the velvet margins
+      of quiet English rivulets. It was one of those wild streams that lavish,
+      among our romantic solitudes, unheeded beauties enough to fill the
+      sketch-book of a hunter of the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap down
+      rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which the trees threw their
+      broad balancing sprays, and long nameless weeds hung in fringes from the
+      impending banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it would brawl and
+      fret along a ravine in the matted shade of a forest, filling it with
+      murmurs; and, after this termagant career, would steal forth into open
+      day, with the most placid, demure face imaginable; as I have seen some
+      pestilent shrew of a housewife, after filling her home with uproar and
+      ill-humour, come dimpling out of doors, swimming and courtesying, and
+      smiling upon all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide, at such times, through some
+      bosom of green meadow-land among the mountains, where the quiet was only
+      interrupted by the occasional tinkling of a bell from the lazy cattle
+      among the clover, or the sound of a woodcutter's axe from the neighbouring
+      forest!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For my part, I was always a bungler at all kinds of sport that required
+      either patience or adroitness, and had not angled above half an hour
+      before I had completely 'satisfied the sentiment,' and convinced myself of
+      the truth of Izaak Walton's opinion, that angling is something like
+      poetry,&mdash;a man must be born to it. I hooked myself instead of the
+      fish; tangled my line in every tree; lost my bait; broke my rod; until I
+      gave up the attempt in despair, and passed the day under the trees,
+      reading old Izaak, satisfied that it was his fascinating vein of honest
+      simplicity and rural feeling that had bewitched me, and not the passion
+      for angling."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A NORWEGIAN HONEYMOON
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "The best rose-bush, after all, is not that which has the
+     fewest thorns, but that which bears the finest roses."
+
+     &mdash;SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ: The Life of Adam.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not all unadulterated sweetness, of course. There were enough
+      difficulties in the way to make it seem desirable; and a few stings of
+      annoyance, now and then, lent piquancy to the adventure. But a good
+      memory, in dealing with the past, has the art of straining out all the
+      beeswax of discomfort, and storing up little jars of pure hydromel. As we
+      look back at our six weeks in Norway, we agree that no period of our
+      partnership in experimental honeymooning has yielded more honey to the
+      same amount of comb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several considerations led us to the resolve of taking our honeymoon
+      experimentally rather than chronologically. We started from the
+      self-evident proposition that it ought to be the happiest time in married
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is perfectly ridiculous," said my lady Graygown, "to suppose that a
+      thing like that can be fixed by the calendar. It may possibly fall in the
+      first month after the wedding, but it is not likely. Just think how
+      slightly two people know each other when they get married. They are in
+      love, of course, but that is not at all the same as being well acquainted.
+      Sometimes the more love, the less acquaintance! And sometimes the more
+      acquaintance, the less love! Besides, at first there are always the notes
+      of thanks for the wedding-presents to be written, and the letters of
+      congratulation to be answered, and it is awfully hard to make each one
+      sound a little different from the others and perfectly natural. Then, you
+      know, everybody seems to suspect you of the folly of being newly married.
+      You run across your friends everywhere, and they grin when they see you.
+      You can't help feeling as if a lot of people were watching you through
+      opera-glasses, or taking snap-shots at you with a kodak. It is absurd to
+      imagine that the first month must be the real honeymoon. And just suppose
+      it were,&mdash;what bad luck that would be! What would there be to look
+      forward to?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every word that fell from her lips seemed to me like the wisdom of
+      Diotima.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are right," I cried; "Portia could not hold a candle to you for clear
+      argument. Besides, suppose two people are imprudent enough to get married
+      in the first week of December, as we did!&mdash;what becomes of the
+      chronological honeymoon then? There is no fishing in December, and all the
+      rivers of Paradise, at least in our latitude, are frozen up. No, my lady,
+      we will discover our month of honey by the empirical method. Each year we
+      will set out together to seek it in a solitude for two; and we will
+      compare notes on moons, and strike the final balance when we are sure that
+      our happiest experiment has been completed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We are not sure of that, even yet. We are still engaged, as a committee of
+      two, in our philosophical investigation, and we decline to make anything
+      but a report of progress. We know more now than we did when we first went
+      honeymooning in the city of Washington. For one thing, we are certain that
+      not even the far-famed rosemary-fields of Narbonne, or the fragrant
+      hillsides of the Corbieres, yield a sweeter harvest to the busy-ness of
+      the bees than the Norwegian meadows and mountain-slopes yielded to our
+      idleness in the summer of 1888.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      II
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rural landscape of Norway, on the long easterly slope that leads up to
+      the watershed among the mountains of the western coast, is not unlike that
+      of Vermont or New Hampshire. The railway from Christiania to the
+      Randsfjord carried us through a hilly country of scattered farms and
+      villages. Wood played a prominent part in the scenery. There were dark
+      stretches of forest on the hilltops and in the valleys; rivers filled with
+      floating logs; sawmills beside the waterfalls; wooden farmhouses painted
+      white; and rail-fences around the fields. The people seemed sturdy,
+      prosperous, independent. They had the familiar habit of coming down to the
+      station to see the train arrive and depart. We might have fancied
+      ourselves on a journey through the Connecticut valley, if it had not been
+      for the soft sing-song of the Norwegian speech and the uniform politeness
+      of the railway officials.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a room that was in the inn at Randsfjord where we spent our first
+      night out! Vast, bare, primitive, with eight windows to admit the
+      persistent nocturnal twilight; a sea-like floor of blue-painted boards,
+      unbroken by a single island of carpet; and a castellated stove in one
+      corner: an apartment for giants, with two little beds for dwarfs on
+      opposite shores of the ocean. There was no telephone; so we arranged a
+      system of communication with a fishing-line, to make sure that the sleepy
+      partner should be awake in time for the early boat in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The journey up the lake took seven hours, and reminded us of a voyage on
+      Lake George; placid, picturesque, and pervaded by summer boarders.
+      Somewhere on the way we had lunch, and were well fortified to take the
+      road when the steamboat landed us at Odnaes, at the head of the lake,
+      about two o'clock in the afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are several methods in which you may drive through Norway. The
+      government maintains posting-stations at the farms along the main
+      travelled highways, where you can hire horses and carriages of various
+      kinds. There are also English tourist agencies which make a business of
+      providing travellers with complete transportation. You may try either of
+      these methods alone, or you may make a judicious mixture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, by an application of the theory of permutations and combinations,
+      you have your choice among four ways of accomplishing a driving-tour.
+      First, you may engage a carriage and pair, with a driver, from one of the
+      tourist agencies, and roll through your journey in sedentary case,
+      provided your horses do not go lame or give out. Second, you may rely
+      altogether upon the posting-stations to send you on your journey; and this
+      is a very pleasant, lively way, provided there is not a crowd of
+      travellers on the road before you, who take up all the comfortable
+      conveyances and leave you nothing but a jolting cart or a ramshackle
+      KARIOL of the time of St. Olaf. Third, you may rent an easy-riding vehicle
+      (by choice a well-hung gig) for the entire trip, and change ponies at the
+      stations as you drive along; this is the safest way. The fourth method is
+      to hire your horseflesh at the beginning for the whole journey, and pick
+      up your vehicles from place to place. This method is theoretically
+      possible, but I do not know any one who has tried it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our gig was waiting for us at Odnaes. There was a brisk little
+      mouse-coloured pony in the shafts; and it took but a moment to strap our
+      leather portmanteau on the board at the back, perch the postboy on top of
+      it, and set out for our first experience of a Norwegian driving-tour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road at first was level and easy; and we bowled along smoothly through
+      the valley of the Etnaelv, among drooping birch-trees and green fields
+      where the larks were singing. At Tomlevolden, ten miles farther on, we
+      reached the first station, a comfortable old farmhouse, with a great array
+      of wooden outbuildings. Here we had a chance to try our luck with the
+      Norwegian language in demanding "en hest, saa straxt som muligt." This was
+      what the guide-book told us to say when we wanted a horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is great fun in making a random cast on the surface of a strange
+      language. You cannot tell what will come up. It is like an experiment in
+      witchcraft. We should not have been at all surprised, I must confess, if
+      our preliminary incantation had brought forth a cow or a basket of eggs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the good people seemed to divine our intentions; and while we were
+      waiting for one of the stable-boys to catch and harness the new horse, a
+      yellow-haired maiden inquired, in very fair English, if we would not be
+      pleased to have a cup of tea and some butter-bread; which we did with
+      great comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The SKYDSGUT, or so-called postboy, for the next stage of the journey, was
+      a full-grown man of considerable weight. As he climbed to his perch on our
+      portmanteau, my lady Graygown congratulated me on the prudence which had
+      provided that one side of that receptacle should be of an inflexible
+      stiffness, quite incapable of being crushed; otherwise, asked she, what
+      would have become of her Sunday frock under the pressure of this stern
+      necessity of a postboy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I think we should not have cared very much if all our luggage had been
+      smashed on this journey, for the road now began to ascend, and the views
+      over the Etnadal, with its winding river, were of a breadth and sweetness
+      most consoling. Up and up we went, curving in and out through the forest,
+      crossing wild ravines and shadowy dells, looking back at every turn on the
+      wide landscape bathed in golden light. At the station of Sveen, where we
+      changed horse and postboy again, it was already evening. The sun was down,
+      but the mystical radiance of the northern twilight illumined the sky. The
+      dark fir-woods spread around us, and their odourous breath was diffused
+      through the cool, still air. We were crossing the level summit of the
+      plateau, twenty-three hundred feet above the sea. Two tiny woodland lakes
+      gleamed out among the trees. Then the road began to slope gently towards
+      the west, and emerged suddenly on the edge of the forest, looking out over
+      the long, lovely vale of Valders, with snow-touched mountains on the
+      horizon, and the river Baegna shimmering along its bed, a thousand feet
+      below us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a heart-enlarging outlook! What a keen joy of motion, as the wheels
+      rolled down the long incline, and the sure-footed pony swung between the
+      shafts and rattled his hoofs merrily on the hard road! What long, deep
+      breaths of silent pleasure in the crisp night air! What wondrous mingling
+      of lights in the afterglow of sunset, and the primrose bloom of the first
+      stars, and faint foregleamings of the rising moon creeping over the hill
+      behind us! What perfection of companionship without words, as we rode
+      together through a strange land, along the edge of the dark!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we finished the thirty-fifth mile, and drew up in the courtyard of
+      the station at Frydenlund, Graygown sprang out, with a little sigh of
+      regret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is it last night," she cried, "or to-morrow morning? I have n't the least
+      idea what time it is; it seems as if we had been travelling in eternity."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is just ten o'clock," I answered, "and the landlord says there will be
+      a hot supper of trout ready for us in five minutes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be vain to attempt to give a daily record of the whole journey in
+      which we made this fair beginning. It was a most idle and unsystematic
+      pilgrimage. We wandered up and down, and turned aside when fancy beckoned.
+      Sometimes we hurried on as fast as the horses would carry us, driving
+      sixty or seventy miles a day; sometimes we loitered and dawdled, as if we
+      did not care whether we got anywhere or not. If a place pleased us, we
+      stayed and tried the fishing. If we were tired of driving, we took to the
+      water, and travelled by steamer along a fjord, or hired a rowboat to cross
+      from point to point. One day we would be in a good little hotel, with
+      polyglot guests, and serving-maids in stagey Norse costumes,&mdash;like
+      the famous inn at Stalheim, which commands the amazing panorama of the
+      Naerodal. Another day we would lodge in a plain farmhouse like the station
+      at Nedre Vasenden, where eggs and fish were the staples of diet, and the
+      farmer's daughter wore the picturesque peasants' dress, with its tall cap,
+      without any dramatic airs. Lakes and rivers, precipices and gorges,
+      waterfalls and glaciers and snowy mountains were our daily repast. We
+      drove over five hundred miles in various kinds of open wagons, KARIOLS for
+      one, and STOLKJAERRES for two, after we had left our comfortable gig
+      behind us. We saw the ancient dragon-gabled church of Burgund; and the
+      delightful, showery town of Bergen; and the gloomy cliffs of the
+      Geiranger-Fjord laced with filmy cataracts; and the bewitched crags of the
+      Romsdal; and the wide, desolate landscape of Jerkin; and a hundred other
+      unforgotten scenes. Somehow or other we went, (around and about, and up
+      and down, now on wheels, and now on foot, and now in a boat,) all the way
+      from Christiania to Throndhjem. My lady Graygown could give you the exact
+      itinerary, for she has been well brought up, and always keeps a diary. All
+      I know is, that we set out from one city and arrived at the other, and we
+      gathered by the way a collection of instantaneous photographs. I am going
+      to turn them over now, and pick out a few of the clearest pictures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      III
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here is the bridge over the Naeselv at Fagernaes. Just below it is a good
+      pool for trout, but the river is broad and deep and swift. It is difficult
+      wading to get out within reach of the fish. I have taken half a dozen
+      small ones and come to the end of my cast. There is a big one lying out in
+      the middle of the river, I am sure. But the water already rises to my
+      hips; another step will bring it over the top of my waders, and send me
+      downstream feet uppermost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take care!" cries Graygown from the grassy bank, where she sits placidly
+      crocheting some mysterious fabric of white yarn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She does not see the large rock lying at the bottom of the river just
+      beyond me. If I can step on that, and stand there without being swept
+      away, I can reach the mid-current with my flies. It is a long stride and a
+      slippery foothold, but by good luck "the last step which costs" is
+      accomplished. The tiny black and orange hackle goes curling out over the
+      stream, lights softly, and swings around with the current, folding and
+      expanding its feathers as if it were alive. The big trout takes it
+      promptly the instant it passes over him; and I play him and net him
+      without moving from my perilous perch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Graygown waves her crochet-work like a flag, "Bravo!" she cries. "That's a
+      beauty, nearly two pounds! But do be careful about coming back; you are
+      not good enough to take any risks yet."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The station at Skogstad is a solitary farmhouse lying far up on the bare
+      hillside, with its barns and out-buildings grouped around a central
+      courtyard, like a rude fortress. The river travels along the valley below,
+      now wrestling its way through a narrow passage among the rocks, now
+      spreading out at leisure in a green meadow. As we cross the bridge, the
+      crystal water is changed to opal by the sunset glow, and a gentle breeze
+      ruffles the long pools, and the trout are rising freely. It is the perfect
+      hour for fishing. Would Graygown dare to drive on alone to the gate of the
+      fortress, and blow upon the long horn which doubtless hangs beside it, and
+      demand admittance and a lodging, "in the name of the great Jehovah and the
+      Continental Congress,"&mdash;while I angle down the river a mile or so?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certainly she would. What door is there in Europe at which the American
+      girl is afraid to knock? "But wait a moment. How do you ask for fried
+      chicken and pancakes in Norwegian? KYLLING OG PANDEKAGE? How fierce it
+      sounds! All right now. Run along and fish."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The river welcomes me like an old friend. The tune that it sings is the
+      same that the flowing water repeats all around the world. Not otherwise do
+      the lively rapids carry the familiar air, and the larger falls drone out a
+      burly bass, along the west branch of the Penobscot, or down the valley of
+      the Bouquet. But here there are no forests to conceal the course of the
+      stream. It lies as free to the view as a child's thought. As I follow on
+      from pool to pool, picking out a good trout here and there, now from a
+      rocky corner edged with foam, now from a swift gravelly run, now from a
+      snug hiding-place that the current has hollowed out beneath the bank, all
+      the way I can see the fortress far above me on the hillside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am as sure that it has already surrendered to Graygown as if I could
+      discern her white banner of crochet-work floating from the battlements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just before dark, I climb the hill with a heavy basket of fish. The castle
+      gate is open. The scent of chicken and pancakes salutes the weary pilgrim.
+      In a cosy little parlour, adorned with fluffy mats and pictures framed in
+      pine-cones, lit by a hanging lamp with glass pendants, sits the mistress
+      of the occasion, calmly triumphant and plying her crochet-needle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is something mysterious about a woman's fancy-work. It seems to have
+      all the soothing charm of the tobacco-plant, without its inconveniences.
+      Just to see her tranquillity, while she relaxes her mind and busies her
+      fingers with a bit of tatting or embroidery or crochet, gives me a sense
+      of being domesticated, a "homey" feeling, anywhere in the wide world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you ever go to Norway, you must be sure to see the Loenvand. You can
+      set out from the comfortable hotel at Faleide, go up the Indvik Fjord in a
+      rowboat, cross over a two-mile hill on foot or by carriage, spend a happy
+      day on the lake, and return to your inn in time for a late supper. The
+      lake is perhaps the most beautiful in Norway. Long and narrow, it lies
+      like a priceless emerald of palest green, hidden and guarded by jealous
+      mountains. It is fed by huge glaciers, which hang over the shoulders of
+      the hills like ragged cloaks of ice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we row along the shore, trolling in vain for the trout that live in the
+      ice-cold water, fragments of the tattered cloth-of-silver far above us, on
+      the opposite side, are loosened by the touch of the summer sun, and fall
+      from the precipice. They drift downward, at first, as noiselessly as
+      thistledowns; then they strike the rocks and come crashing towards the
+      lake with the hollow roar of an avalanche.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the head of the lake we find ourselves in an enormous amphitheatre of
+      mountains. Glaciers are peering down upon us. Snow-fields glare at us with
+      glistening eyes. Black crags seem to bend above us with an eternal frown.
+      Streamers of foam float from the forehead of the hills and the lips of the
+      dark ravines. But there is a little river of cold, pure water flowing from
+      one of the rivers of ice, and a pleasant shelter of young trees and bushes
+      growing among the debris of shattered rocks; and there we build our
+      camp-fire and eat our lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hunger is a most impudent appetite. It makes a man forget all the
+      proprieties. What place is there so lofty, so awful, that he will not dare
+      to sit down in it and partake of food? Even on the side of Mount Sinai,
+      the elders of Israel spread their out-of-door table, "and did eat and
+      drink."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see the Tarn of the Elk at this moment, just as it looked in the clear
+      sunlight of that August afternoon, ten years ago. Far down in a hollow of
+      the desolate hills it nestles, four thousand feet above the sea. The
+      moorland trail hangs high above it, and, though it is a mile away, every
+      curve of the treeless shore, every shoal and reef in the light green water
+      is clearly visible. With a powerful field-glass one can almost see the
+      large trout for which the pond is famous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shelter-hut on the bank is built of rough gray stones, and the roof is
+      leaky to the light as well as to the weather. But there are two beds in
+      it, one for my guide and one for me; and a practicable fireplace, which is
+      soon filled with a blaze of comfort. There is also a random library of
+      novels, which former fishermen have thoughtfully left behind them. I like
+      strong reading in the wilderness. Give me a story with plenty of danger
+      and wholesome fighting in it,&mdash;"The Three Musketeers," or "Treasure
+      Island," or "The Afghan's Knife." Intricate studies of social dilemmas and
+      tales of mild philandering seem bloodless and insipid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trout in the Tarn of the Elk are large, undoubtedly, but they are also
+      few in number and shy in disposition. Either some of the peasants have
+      been fishing over them with the deadly "otter," or else they belong to
+      that variety of the trout family known as TRUTTA DAMNOSA,&mdash;the
+      species which you can see but cannot take. We watched these aggravating
+      fish playing on the surface at sunset; we saw them dart beneath our boat
+      in the early morning; but not until a driving snowstorm set in, about noon
+      of the second day, did we succeed in persuading any of them to take the
+      fly. Then they rose, for a couple of hours, with amiable perversity. I
+      caught five, weighing between two and four pounds each, and stopped
+      because my hands were so numb that I could cast no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now for a long tramp over the hills and home. Yes, home; for yonder in the
+      white house at Drivstuen, with fuchsias and geraniums blooming in the
+      windows, and a pretty, friendly Norse girl to keep her company, my lady is
+      waiting for me. See, she comes running out to the door, in the gathering
+      dusk, with a red flower in her hair, and hails me with the fisherman's
+      greeting. WHAT LUCK?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, THIS luck, at all events! I can show you a few good fish, and sit
+      down with you to a supper of reindeer-venison and a quiet evening of music
+      and talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shall I forget thee, hospitable Stuefloten, dearest to our memory of all
+      the rustic stations in Norway? There are no stars beside thy name in the
+      pages of Baedeker. But in the book of our hearts a whole constellation is
+      thine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The long, low, white farmhouse stands on a green hill at the head of the
+      Romsdal. A flourishing crop of grass and flowers grows on the stable-roof,
+      and there is a little belfry with a big bell to call the labourers home
+      from the fields. In the corner of the living-room of the old house there
+      is a broad fireplace built across the angle. Curious cupboards are tucked
+      away everywhere. The long table in the dining-room groans thrice a day
+      with generous fare. There are as many kinds of hot bread as in a Virginia
+      country-house; the cream is thick enough to make a spoon stand up in
+      amazement; once, at dinner, we sat embarrassed before six different
+      varieties of pudding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening, when the saffron light is beginning to fade, we go out and
+      walk in the road before the house, looking down the long mystical vale of
+      the Rauma, or up to the purple western hills from which the clear streams
+      of the Ulvaa flow to meet us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Above Stuefloten the Rauma lingers and meanders through a smoother and
+      more open valley, with broad beds of gravel and flowery meadows. Here the
+      trout and grayling grow fat and lusty, and here we angle for them, day
+      after day, in water so crystalline that when one steps into the stream one
+      hardly knows whether to expect a depth of six inches or six feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tiny English flies and leaders of gossamer are the tackle for such water
+      in midsummer. With this delicate outfit, and with a light hand and a long
+      line, one may easily outfish the native angler, and fill a twelve-pound
+      basket every fair day. I remember an old Norwegian, an inveterate
+      fisherman, whose footmarks we saw ahead of us on the stream all through an
+      afternoon. Footmarks I call them; and so they were, literally, for there
+      were only the prints of a single foot to be seen on the banks of sand, and
+      between them, a series of small, round, deep holes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What kind of a bird made those marks, Frederik?" I asked my faithful
+      guide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is old Pedersen," he said, "with his wooden leg. He makes a dot
+      after every step. We shall catch him in a little while."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sure enough, about six o'clock we saw him standing on a grassy point,
+      hurling his line, with a fat worm on the end of it, far across the stream,
+      and letting it drift down with the current. But the water was too fine for
+      that style of fishing, and the poor old fellow had but a half dozen little
+      fish. My creel was already overflowing, so I emptied out all of the
+      grayling into his bag, and went on up the river to complete my tale of
+      trout before dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when the fishing is over, there is Graygown with the wagon, waiting at
+      the appointed place under the trees, beside the road. The sturdy white
+      pony trots gayly homeward. The pale yellow stars blossom out above the
+      hills again, as they did on that first night when we were driving down
+      into the Valders. Frederik leans over the back of the seat, telling us
+      marvellous tales, in his broken English, of the fishing in a certain lake
+      among the mountains, and of the reindeer-shooting on the fjeld beyond it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is sad that you go to-morrow," says he "but you come back another
+      year, I think, to fish in that lake, and to shoot those reindeer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, Frederik, we are coming back to Norway some day, perhaps,&mdash;who
+      can tell? It is one of the hundred places that we are vaguely planning to
+      revisit. For, though we did not see the midnight sun there, we saw the
+      honeymoon most distinctly. And it was bright enough to take pictures by
+      its light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS?
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that ultimately the
+      sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall become, as
+      it were, interwoven into man's existence. He shall take from all their
+      beauty and enjoy their glory."&mdash;RICHARD JEFFERIES: The Life of the
+      Fields.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the little lad that asked the question; and the answer also, as you
+      will see, was mainly his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had been keeping Sunday afternoon together in our favourite fashion,
+      following out that pleasant text which tells us to "behold the fowls of
+      the air." There is no injunction of Holy Writ less burdensome in
+      acceptance, or more profitable in obedience, than this easy out-of-doors
+      commandment. For several hours we walked in the way of this precept,
+      through the untangled woods that lie behind the Forest Hills Lodge, where
+      a pair of pigeon-hawks had their nest; and around the brambly shores of
+      the small pond, where Maryland yellow-throats and song-sparrows were
+      settled; and under the lofty hemlocks of the fragment of forest across the
+      road, where rare warblers flitted silently among the tree-tops. The light
+      beneath the evergreens was growing dim as we came out from their shadow
+      into the widespread glow of the sunset, on the edge of a grassy hill,
+      overlooking the long valley of the Gale River, and uplooking to the
+      Franconia Mountains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the benediction hour. The placid air of the day shed a new
+      tranquillity over the consoling landscape. The heart of the earth seemed
+      to taste a repose more perfect than that of common days. A hermit-thrush,
+      far up the vale, sang his vesper hymn; while the swallows, seeking their
+      evening meal, circled above the river-fields without an effort, twittering
+      softly, now and then, as if they must give thanks. Slight and indefinable
+      touches in the scene, perhaps the mere absence of the tiny human figures
+      passing along the road or labouring in the distant meadows, perhaps the
+      blue curls of smoke rising lazily from the farmhouse chimneys, or the
+      family groups sitting under the maple-trees before the door, diffused a
+      sabbath atmosphere over the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then said the lad, lying on the grass beside me, "Father, who owns the
+      mountains?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I happened to have heard, the day before, of two or three lumber companies
+      that had bought some of the woodland slopes; so I told him their names,
+      adding that there were probably a good many different owners, whose claims
+      taken all together would cover the whole Franconia range of hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well," answered the lad, after a moment of silence, "I don't see what
+      difference that makes. Everybody can look at them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They lay stretched out before us in the level sunlight, the sharp peaks
+      outlined against the sky, the vast ridges of forest sinking smoothly
+      towards the valleys, the deep hollows gathering purple shadows in their
+      bosoms, and the little foothills standing out in rounded promontories of
+      brighter green from the darker mass behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far to the east, the long comb of Twin Mountain extended itself back into
+      the untrodden wilderness. Mount Garfield lifted a clear-cut pyramid
+      through the translucent air. The huge bulk of Lafayette ascended
+      majestically in front of us, crowned with a rosy diadem of rocks. Eagle
+      Cliff and Bald Mountain stretched their line of scalloped peaks across the
+      entrance to the Notch. Beyond that shadowy vale, the swelling summits of
+      Cannon Mountain rolled away to meet the tumbling waves of Kinsman,
+      dominated by one loftier crested billow that seemed almost ready to curl
+      and break out of green silence into snowy foam. Far down the sleeping
+      Landaff valley the undulating dome of Moosilauke trembled in the distant
+      blue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were all ours, from crested cliff to wooded base. The solemn groves
+      of firs and spruces, the plumed sierras of lofty pines, the stately
+      pillared forests of birch and beech, the wild ravines, the tremulous
+      thickets of silvery poplar, the bare peaks with their wide outlooks, and
+      the cool vales resounding with the ceaseless song of little rivers,&mdash;we
+      knew and loved them all; they ministered peace and joy to us; they were
+      all ours, though we held no title deeds and our ownership had never been
+      recorded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What is property, after all? The law says there are two kinds, real and
+      personal. But it seems to me that the only real property is that which is
+      truly personal, that which we take into our inner life and make our own
+      forever, by understanding and admiration and sympathy and love. This is
+      the only kind of possession that is worth anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gallery of great paintings adorns the house of the Honourable Midas
+      Bond, and every year adds a new treasure to his collection. He knows how
+      much they cost him, and he keeps the run of the quotations at the auction
+      sales, congratulating himself as the price of the works of his well-chosen
+      artists rises in the scale, and the value of his art treasures is
+      enhanced. But why should he call them his? He is only their custodian. He
+      keeps them well varnished, and framed in gilt. But he never passes through
+      those gilded frames into the world of beauty that lies behind the painted
+      canvas. He knows nothing of those lovely places from which the artist's
+      soul and hand have drawn their inspiration. They are closed and barred to
+      him. He has bought the pictures, but he cannot buy the key. The poor art
+      student who wanders through his gallery, lingering with awe and love
+      before the masterpieces, owns them far more truly than Midas does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pomposus Silverman purchased a rich library a few years ago. The books
+      were rare and costly. That was the reason why Pomposus bought them. He was
+      proud to feel that he was the possessor of literary treasures which were
+      not to be found in the houses of his wealthiest acquaintances. But the
+      threadbare Bucherfreund, who was engaged at a slender salary to catalogue
+      the library and take care of it, became the real proprietor. Pomposus paid
+      for the books, but Bucherfreund enjoyed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I do not mean to say that the possession of much money is always a barrier
+      to real wealth of mind and heart. Nor would I maintain that all the poor
+      of this world are rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. But some of them
+      are. And if some of the rich of this world (through the grace of Him with
+      whom all things are possible) are also modest in their tastes, and gentle
+      in their hearts, and open in their minds, and ready to be pleased with
+      unbought pleasures, they simply share in the best things which are
+      provided for all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I speak not now of the strife that men wage over the definition and the
+      laws of property. Doubtless there is much here that needs to be set right.
+      There are men and women in the world who are shut out from the right to
+      earn a living, so poor that they must perish for want of daily bread, so
+      full of misery that there is no room for the tiniest seed of joy in their
+      lives. This is the lingering shame of civilization. Some day, perhaps, we
+      shall find the way to banish it. Some day, every man shall have his title
+      to a share in the world's great work and the world's large joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But meantime it is certain that, where there are a hundred poor bodies who
+      suffer from physical privation, there are a thousand poor souls who suffer
+      from spiritual poverty. To relive this greater suffering there needs no
+      change of laws, only a change of heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What does it profit a man to be the landed proprietor of countless acres
+      unless he can reap the harvest of delight that blooms from every rood of
+      God's earth for the seeing eye and the loving spirit? And who can reap
+      that harvest so closely that there shall not be abundant gleaning left for
+      all mankind? The most that a wide estate can yield to its legal owner is a
+      living. But the real owner can gather from a field of goldenrod, shining
+      in the August sunlight, an unearned increment of delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We measure success by accumulation. The measure is false. The true measure
+      is appreciation. He who loves most has most.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How foolishly we train ourselves for the work of life! We give our most
+      arduous and eager efforts to the cultivation of those faculties which will
+      serve us in the competitions of the forum and the market-place. But if we
+      were wise, we should care infinitely more for the unfolding of those
+      inward, secret, spiritual powers by which alone we can become the owners
+      of anything that is worth having. Surely God is the great proprietor. Yet
+      all His works He has given away. He holds no title-deeds. The one thing
+      that is His, is the perfect understanding, the perfect joy, the perfect
+      love, of all things that He has made. To a share in this high ownership He
+      welcomes all who are poor in spirit. This is the earth which the meek
+      inherit. This is the patrimony of the saints in light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come, laddie," I said to my comrade, "let us go home. You and I are very
+      rich. We own the mountains. But we can never sell them, and we don't want
+      to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A LAZY, IDLE BROOK
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only
+     to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.
+     And it is not by any means certain that a man's business is
+     the most important thing he has to do."
+
+     &mdash;ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: An Apology for Idlers.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I. A CASUAL INTRODUCTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the South Shore of Long Island, all things incline to a natural
+      somnolence. There are no ambitious mountains, no braggart cliffs, no hasty
+      torrents, no hustling waterfalls in that land,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   "In which it seemeth always afternoon."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The salt meadows sleep in the summer sun; the farms and market-gardens
+      yield a placid harvest to a race of singularly unhurried tillers of the
+      soil; the low hills rise with gentle slopes, not caring to get too high in
+      the world, only far enough to catch a pleasant glimpse of the sea and a
+      breath of fresh air; the very trees grow leisurely, as if they felt that
+      they had "all the time there is." And from this dreamy land, close as it
+      lies to the unresting ocean, the tumult of the breakers and the foam of
+      ever-turning tides are shut off by the languid lagoons of the Great South
+      Bay and a long range of dunes, crested with wire-grass, bay-bushes, and
+      wild-roses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In such a country you could not expect a little brook to be noisy, fussy,
+      energetic. If it were not lazy, it would be out of keeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the actual and undisguised idleness of this particular brook was
+      another affair, and one in which it was distinguished among its fellows.
+      For almost all the other little rivers of the South Shore, lazy as they
+      may be by nature, yet manage to do some kind of work before they finish
+      the journey from their crystal-clear springs into the brackish waters of
+      the bay. They turn the wheels of sleepy gristmills, while the miller sits
+      with his hands in his pockets underneath the willow-trees. They fill
+      reservoirs out of which great steam-engines pump the water to quench the
+      thirst of Brooklyn. Even the smaller streams tarry long enough in their
+      seaward sauntering to irrigate a few cranberry-bogs and so provide that
+      savoury sauce which makes the Long Island turkey a fitter subject for
+      Thanksgiving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this brook of which I speak did none of these useful things. It was
+      absolutely out of business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was not a mill, nor a reservoir, nor a cranberry-bog, on all its
+      course of a short mile. The only profitable affair it ever undertook was
+      to fill a small ice-pond near its entrance into the Great South Bay. You
+      could hardly call this a very energetic enterprise. It amounted to little
+      more than a good-natured consent to allow itself to be used by the winter
+      for the making of ice, if the winter happened to be cold enough. Even this
+      passive industry came to nothing; for the water, being separated from the
+      bay only by a short tideway under a wooden bridge on the south country
+      road, was too brackish to freeze easily; and the ice, being pervaded with
+      weeds, was not much relished by the public. So the wooden ice-house,
+      innocent of paint, and toned by the weather to a soft, sad-coloured gray,
+      stood like an improvised ruin among the pine-trees beside the pond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was through this unharvested ice-pond, this fallow field of water, that
+      my lady Graygown and I entered on acquaintance with our lazy, idle brook.
+      We had a house, that summer, a few miles down the bay. But it was a very
+      small house, and the room that we like best was out of doors. So we spent
+      much time in a sailboat,&mdash;by name "The Patience,"&mdash;making
+      voyages of exploration into watery corners and byways. Sailing past the
+      wooden bridge one day, when a strong east wind had made a very low tide,
+      we observed the water flowing out beneath the road with an eddying
+      current. We were interested to discover where such a stream came from. But
+      the sailboat could not go under the bridge, nor even make a landing on the
+      shore without risk of getting aground. The next day we came back in a
+      rowboat to follow the clue of curiosity. The tide was high now, and we
+      passed with the reversed current under the bridge, almost bumping our
+      heads against the timbers. Emerging upon the pond, we rowed across its
+      shallow, weed-encumbered waters, and were introduced without ceremony to
+      one of the most agreeable brooks that we had ever met.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite broad where it came into the pond,&mdash;a hundred feet from
+      side to side,&mdash;bordered with flags and rushes and feathery meadow
+      grasses. The real channel meandered in sweeping curves from bank to bank,
+      and the water, except in the swifter current, was filled with an amazing
+      quantity of some aquatic moss. The woods came straggling down on either
+      shore. There were fallen trees in the stream here and there. On one of the
+      points an old swamp-maple, with its decrepit branches and its leaves
+      already touched with the hectic colours of decay, hung far out over the
+      water which was undermining it, looking and leaning downward, like an aged
+      man who bends, half-sadly and half-willingly, towards the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But for the most part the brook lay wide open to the sky, and the tide,
+      rising and sinking somewhat irregularly in the pond below, made curious
+      alternations in its depth and in the swiftness of its current. For about
+      half a mile we navigated this lazy little river, and then we found that
+      rowing would carry us no farther, for we came to a place where the stream
+      issued with a livelier flood from an archway in a thicket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This woodland portal was not more than four feet wide, and the branches of
+      the small trees were closely interwoven overhead. We shipped the oars and
+      took one of them for a paddle. Stooping down, we pushed the boat through
+      the archway and found ourselves in the Fairy Dell. It was a long, narrow
+      bower, perhaps four hundred feet from end to end, with the brook dancing
+      through it in a joyous, musical flow over a bed of clean yellow sand and
+      white pebbles. There were deep places in the curves where you could hardly
+      touch bottom with an oar, and shallow places in the straight runs where
+      the boat would barely float. Not a ray of unbroken sunlight leaked through
+      the green roof of this winding corridor; and all along the sides there
+      were delicate mosses and tall ferns and wildwood flowers that love the
+      shade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the upper end of the bower our progress in the boat was barred by a low
+      bridge, on a forgotten road that wound through the pine-woods. Here I left
+      my lady Graygown, seated on the shady corner of the bridge with a book,
+      swinging her feet over the stream, while I set out to explore its further
+      course. Above the wood-road there were no more fairy dells, nor easy-going
+      estuaries. The water came down through the most complicated piece of
+      underbrush that I have ever encountered. Alders and swamp maples and
+      pussy-willows and gray birches grew together in a wild confusion.
+      Blackberry bushes and fox-grapes and cat-briers trailed and twisted
+      themselves in an incredible tangle. There was only one way to advance, and
+      that was to wade in the middle of the brook, stooping low, lifting up the
+      pendulous alder-branches, threading a tortuous course, now under and now
+      over the innumerable obstacles, as a darning-needle is pushed in and out
+      through the yarn of a woollen stocking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was dark and lonely in that difficult passage. The brook divided into
+      many channels, turning this way and that way, as if it were lost in the
+      woods. There were huge clumps of OSMUNDA REGALIS spreading their fronds in
+      tropical profusion. Mouldering logs were covered with moss. The water
+      gurgled slowly into deep corners under the banks. Catbirds and blue jays
+      fluttered screaming from the thickets. Cotton-tailed rabbits darted away,
+      showing the white flag of fear. Once I thought I saw the fuscous gleam of
+      a red fox stealing silently through the brush. It would have been no
+      surprise to hear the bark of a raccoon, or see the eyes of a wildcat
+      gleaming through the leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For more than an hour I was pushing my way through this miniature
+      wilderness of half a mile; and then I emerged suddenly, to find myself
+      face to face with&mdash;a railroad embankment and the afternoon express,
+      with its parlour-cars, thundering down to Southampton!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a strange and startling contrast. The explorer's joy, the sense of
+      adventure, the feeling of wildness and freedom, withered and crumpled
+      somewhat preposterously at the sight of the parlour-cars. My scratched
+      hands and wet boots and torn coat seemed unkempt and disreputable. Perhaps
+      some of the well-dressed people looking out at the windows of the train
+      were the friends with whom we were to dine on Saturday. BATECHE! What
+      would they say to such a costume as mine? What did I care what they said!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, all the same, it was a shock, a disenchantment, to find that
+      civilization, with all its absurdities and conventionalities, was so
+      threateningly close to my new-found wilderness. My first enthusiasm was
+      not a little chilled as I walked back, along an open woodland path, to the
+      bridge where Graygown was placidly reading. Reading, I say, though her
+      book was closed, and her brown eyes were wandering over the green leaves
+      of the thicket, and the white clouds drifting, drifting lazily across the
+      blue deep of the sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II. A BETTER ACQUAINTANCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the voyage home, she gently talked me out of my disappointment, and
+      into a wiser frame of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a surprise, of course, she admitted, to find that our wilderness
+      was so little, and to discover the trail of a parlour-car on the edge of
+      Paradise. But why not turn the surprise around, and make it pleasant
+      instead of disagreeable? Why not look at the contrast from the side that
+      we liked best?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not necessary that everybody should take the same view of life that
+      pleased us. The world would not get on very well without people who
+      preferred parlour-cars to canoes, and patent-leather shoes to India-rubber
+      boots, and ten-course dinners to picnics in the woods. These good people
+      were unconsciously toiling at the hard and necessary work of life in order
+      that we, of the chosen and fortunate few, should be at liberty to enjoy
+      the best things in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why should we neglect our opportunities, which were also our real duties?
+      The nervous disease of civilization might prevail all around us, but that
+      ought not to destroy our grateful enjoyment of the lucid intervals that
+      were granted to us by a merciful Providence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why should we not take this little untamed brook, running its humble
+      course through the borders of civilized life and midway between two
+      flourishing summer resorts,&mdash;a brook without a single house or a
+      cultivated field on its banks, as free and beautiful and secluded as if it
+      flowed through miles of trackless forest,&mdash;why not take this brook as
+      a sign that the ordering of the universe had a "good intention" even for
+      inveterate idlers, and that the great Arranger of the world felt some
+      kindness for such gipsy-hearts as ours? What law, human or divine, was
+      there to prevent us from making this stream our symbol of deliverance from
+      the conventional and commonplace, our guide to liberty and a quiet mind?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So reasoned Graygown with her
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          "most silver flow
+     Of subtle-paced counsel in distress."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And, according to her word, so did we. That lazy, idle brook became to us
+      one of the best of friends; the pathfinder of happiness on many a bright
+      summer day; and, through long vacations, the faithful encourager of
+      indolence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indolence in the proper sense of the word, you understand. The meaning
+      which is commonly given to it, as Archbishop Trench pointed out in his
+      suggestive book about WORDS AND THEIR USES, is altogether false. To speak
+      of indolence as if it were a vice is just a great big verbal slander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indolence is a virtue. It comes from two Latin words, which mean freedom
+      from anxiety or grief. And that is a wholesome state of mind. There are
+      times and seasons when it is even a pious and blessed state of mind. Not
+      to be in a hurry; not to be ambitious or jealous or resentful; not to feel
+      envious of anybody; not to fret about to-day nor worry about to-morrow,&mdash;that
+      is the way we ought all to feel at some time in our lives; and that is the
+      kind of indolence in which our brook faithfully encouraged us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'T is an age in which such encouragement is greatly needed. We have fallen
+      so much into the habit of being always busy that we know not how nor when
+      to break it off with firmness. Our business tags after us into the midst
+      of our pleasures, and we are ill at ease beyond reach of the telegraph and
+      the daily newspaper. We agitate ourselves amazingly about a multitude of
+      affairs,&mdash;the politics of Europe, the state of the weather all around
+      the globe, the marriages and festivities of very rich people, and the
+      latest novelties in crime, none of which are of vital interest to us. The
+      more earnest souls among us are cultivating a vicious tendency to Summer
+      Schools, and Seaside Institutes of Philosophy, and Mountaintop Seminaries
+      of Modern Languages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We toil assiduously to cram something more into those scrap-bags of
+      knowledge which we fondly call our minds. Seldom do we rest tranquil long
+      enough to find out whether there is anything in them already that is of
+      real value,&mdash;any native feeling, any original thought, which would
+      like to come out and sun itself for a while in quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my part, I am sure that I stand more in need of a deeper sense of
+      contentment with life than of a knowledge of the Bulgarian tongue, and
+      that all the paradoxes of Hegel would not do me so much good as one hour
+      of vital sympathy with the careless play of children. The Marquis du Paty
+      de l'Huitre may espouse the daughter and heiress of the Honourable James
+      Bulger with all imaginable pomp, if he will. CA NE M'INTRIGUE POINT DU
+      TOUT. I would rather stretch myself out on the grass and watch yonder pair
+      of kingbirds carrying luscious flies to their young ones in the nest, or
+      chasing away the marauding crow with shrill cries of anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a pretty battle it is, and in a good cause, too! Waste no pity on
+      that big black ruffian. He is a villain and a thief, an egg-stealer, an
+      ogre, a devourer of unfledged innocents. The kingbirds are not afraid of
+      him, knowing that he is a coward at heart. They fly upon him, now from
+      below, now from above. They buffet him from one side and from the other.
+      They circle round him like a pair of swift gunboats round an antiquated
+      man-of-war. They even perch upon his back and dash their beaks into his
+      neck and pluck feathers from his piratical plumage. At last his lumbering
+      flight has carried him far enough away, and the brave little defenders fly
+      back to the nest, poising above it on quivering wings for a moment, then
+      dipping down swiftly in pursuit of some passing insect. The war is over.
+      Courage has had its turn. Now tenderness comes into play. The young birds,
+      all ignorant of the passing danger, but always conscious of an insatiable
+      hunger, are uttering loud remonstrances and plaintive demands for food.
+      Domestic life begins again, and they that sow not, neither gather into
+      barns, are fed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do you suppose that this wondrous stage of earth was set, and all the
+      myriad actors on it taught to play their parts, without a spectator in
+      view? Do you think that there is anything better for you and me to do, now
+      and then, than to sit down quietly in a humble seat, and watch a few
+      scenes in the drama? Has it not something to say to us, and do we not
+      understand it best when we have a peaceful heart and free from dolor? That
+      is what IN-DOLENCE means, and there are no better teachers of it then the
+      light-hearted birds and untoiling flowers, commended by the wisest of all
+      masters to our consideration; nor can we find a more pleasant pedagogue to
+      lead us to their school than a small, merry brook.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this was what our chosen stream did for us. It was always luring us
+      away from an artificial life into restful companionship with nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suppose, for example, we found ourselves growing a bit dissatisfied with
+      the domestic arrangements of our little cottage, and coveting the
+      splendours of a grander establishment. An afternoon on the brook was a
+      good cure for that folly. Or suppose a day came when there was an imminent
+      prospect of many formal calls. We had an important engagement up the
+      brook; and while we kept it we could think with satisfaction of the joy of
+      our callers when they discovered that they could discharge their whole
+      duty with a piece of pasteboard. This was an altruistic pleasure. Or
+      suppose that a few friends were coming to supper, and there were no
+      flowers for the supper-table. We could easily have bought them in the
+      village. But it was far more to our liking to take the children up the
+      brook, and come back with great bunches of wild white honeysuckle and blue
+      flag, or posies of arrowheads and cardinal-flowers. Or suppose that I was
+      very unwisely and reluctantly labouring at some serious piece of literary
+      work, promised for the next number of THE SCRIBBLER'S REVIEW; and suppose
+      that in the midst of this labour the sad news came to me that the
+      fisherman had forgotten to leave any fish at our cottage that morning.
+      Should my innocent babes and my devoted wife be left to perish of
+      starvation while I continued my poetical comparison of the two Williams,
+      Shakspeare and Watson? Inhuman selfishness! Of course it was my plain duty
+      to sacrifice my inclinations, and get my fly-rod, and row away across the
+      bay, with a deceptive appearance of cheerfulness, to catch a basket of
+      trout in&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III. THE SECRETS OF INTIMACY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THERE! I came within eight letters of telling the name of the brook, a
+      thing that I am firmly resolved not to do. If it were an ordinary fishless
+      little river, or even a stream with nothing better than grass-pike and
+      sunfish in it, you should have the name and welcome. But when a brook
+      contains speckled trout, and when their presence is known to a very few
+      persons who guard the secret as the dragon guarded the golden apples of
+      the Hesperides, and when the size of the trout is large beyond the dreams
+      of hope,&mdash;well, when did you know a true angler who would willingly
+      give away the name of such a brook as that? You may find an encourager of
+      indolence in almost any stream of the South Side, and I wish you joy of
+      your brook. But if you want to catch trout in mine you must discover it
+      for yourself, or perhaps go with me some day, and solemnly swear secrecy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the way in which the freedom of the stream was conferred upon me.
+      There was a small boy in the village, the son of rich but respectable
+      parents, and an inveterate all-round sportsman, aged fourteen years, with
+      whom I had formed a close intimacy. I was telling him about the pleasure
+      of exploring the idle brook, and expressing the opinion that in bygone
+      days, (in that mythical "forty years ago" when all fishing was good),
+      there must have been trout in it. A certain look came over the boy's face.
+      He gazed at me solemnly, as if he were searching the inmost depths of my
+      character before he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Say, do you want to know something?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I assured him that an increase of knowledge was the chief aim of my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you promise you won't tell?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I expressed my readiness to be bound to silence by the most awful pledge
+      that the law would sanction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wish you may die?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I not only wished that I might die, but was perfectly certain that I would
+      die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, what's the matter with catching trout in that brook now? Do you
+      want to go with me next Saturday? I saw four or five bully ones last week,
+      and got three."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the appointed day we made the voyage, landed at the upper bridge,
+      walked around by the woodpath to the railroad embankment, and began to
+      worm our way down through the tangled wilderness. Fly-fishing, of course,
+      was out of the question. The only possible method of angling was to let
+      the line, baited with a juicy "garden hackle," drift down the current as
+      far as possible before you, under the alder-branches and the cat-briers,
+      into the holes and corners of the stream. Then, if there came a gentle tug
+      on the rod, you must strike, to one side or the other, as the branches
+      might allow, and trust wholly to luck for a chance to play the fish. Many
+      a trout we lost that day,&mdash;the largest ones, of course,&mdash;and
+      many a hook was embedded in a sunken log, or hopelessly entwined among the
+      boughs overhead. But when we came out at the bridge, very wet and
+      disheveled, we had seven pretty fish, the heaviest about half a pound. The
+      Fairy Dell yielded a brace of smaller ones, and altogether we were
+      reasonably happy as we took up the oars and pushed out upon the open
+      stream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if there were fish above, why should there not be fish below? It was
+      about sunset, the angler's golden hour. We were already committed to the
+      crime of being late for supper. It would add little to our guilt and much
+      to our pleasure to drift slowly down the middle of the brook and cast the
+      artful fly in the deeper corners on either shore. So I took off the vulgar
+      bait-hook and put on a delicate leader with a Queen of the Water for a
+      tail-fly and a Yellow Sally for a dropper,&mdash;innocent little
+      confections of feathers and tinsel, dressed on the tiniest hooks, and
+      calculated to tempt the appetite or the curiosity of the most capricious
+      trout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time the whipping of the water produced no result, and it
+      seemed as if the dainty style of angling were destined to prove less
+      profitable than plain fishing with a worm. But presently we came to an
+      elbow of the brook, just above the estuary, where there was quite a
+      stretch of clear water along the lower side, with two half-sunken logs
+      sticking out from the bank, against which the current had drifted a broad
+      raft of weeds. I made a long cast, and sent the tail-fly close to the edge
+      of the weeds. There was a swelling ripple on the surface of the water, and
+      a noble fish darted from under the logs, dashed at the fly, missed it, and
+      whirled back to his shelter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gee!" said the boy, "that was a whacker! He made a wake like a
+      steamboat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a moment for serious thought. What was best to be done with that
+      fish? Leave him to settle down for the night and come back after him
+      another day? Or try another cast for him at once? A fish on Saturday
+      evening is worth two on Monday morning. I changed the Queen of the Water
+      for a Royal Coachman tied on a number fourteen hook,&mdash;white wings,
+      peacock body with a belt of crimson silk,&mdash;and sent it out again, a
+      foot farther up the stream and a shade closer to the weeds. As it settled
+      on the water, there was a flash of gold from the shadow beneath the logs,
+      and a quick turn of the wrist made the tiny hook fast in the fish. He
+      fought wildly to get back to the shelter of his logs, but the four ounce
+      rod had spring enough in it to hold him firmly away from that dangerous
+      retreat. Then he splurged up and down the open water, and made fierce
+      dashes among the grassy shallows, and seemed about to escape a dozen
+      times. But at last his force was played out; he came slowly towards the
+      boat, turning on his side, and I netted him in my hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bully for us;" said the boy, "we got him! What a dandy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was indeed one of the handsomest fish that I have ever taken on the
+      South Side,&mdash;just short of two pounds and a quarter,&mdash;small
+      head, broad tail, and well-rounded sides coloured with orange and blue and
+      gold and red. A pair of the same kind, one weighing two pounds and the
+      other a pound and three quarters, were taken by careful fishing down the
+      lower end of the pool, and then we rowed home through the dusk, pleasantly
+      convinced that there is no virtue more certainly rewarded than the
+      patience of anglers, and entirely willing to put up with a cold supper and
+      a mild reproof for the sake of sport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course we could not resist the temptation to show those fish to the
+      neighbours. But, equally of course, we evaded the request to give precise
+      information as to the precise place where they were caught. Indeed, I fear
+      that there must have been something confused in our description of where
+      we had been on that afternoon. Our carefully selected language may have
+      been open to misunderstanding. At all events, the next day, which was the
+      Sabbath, there was a row of eager but unprincipled anglers sitting on a
+      bridge OVER ANOTHER STREAM, and fishing for trout with worms and large
+      expectations, but without visible results.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy and I agreed that if this did not teach a good moral lesson it was
+      not our fault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I obtained the boy's consent to admit the partner of my life's joys and
+      two of our children to the secret of the brook, and thereafter, when we
+      visited it, we took the fly-rod with us. If by chance another boat passed
+      us in the estuary, we were never fishing, but only gathering flowers, or
+      going for a picnic, or taking photographs. But when the uninitiated ones
+      had passed by, we would get out the rod again, and try a few more casts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day in particular I remember, when Graygown and little Teddy were my
+      companions. We really had no hopes of angling, for the hour was mid-noon,
+      and the day was warm and still. But suddenly the trout, by one of those
+      unaccountable freaks which make their disposition so interesting and
+      attractive, began to rise all about us in a bend of the stream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look!" said Teddy; "wherever you see one of those big smiles on the
+      water, I believe there's a fish!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately the rod was at hand. Graygown and Teddy managed the boat and
+      the landing-net with consummate skill. We landed no less than a dozen
+      beautiful fish at that most unlikely hour and then solemnly shook hands
+      all around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a peculiar pleasure in doing a thing like this, catching trout in
+      a place where nobody thinks of looking for them, and at an hour when
+      everybody believes they cannot be caught. It is more fun to take one good
+      fish out of an old, fished-out stream, near at hand to the village, than
+      to fill a basket from some far-famed and well-stocked water. It is the
+      unexpected touch that tickles our sense of pleasure. While life lasts, we
+      are always hoping for it and expecting it. There is no country so
+      civilized, no existence so humdrum, that there is not room enough in it
+      somewhere for a lazy, idle brook, an encourager of indolence, with hope of
+      happy surprises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE OPEN FIRE
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "It is a vulgar notion that a fire is only for heat.  A
+     chief value of it is, however, to look at.  And it is never
+     twice the same."
+
+     &mdash;CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER: Backlog Studies.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I. LIGHTING UP
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Man is the animal that has made friends with the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the other creatures, in their natural state, are afraid of it. They
+      look upon it with wonder and dismay. It fascinates them, sometimes, with
+      its glittering eyes in the night. The squirrels and the hares come
+      pattering softly towards it through the underbrush around the new camp.
+      The fascinated deer stares into the blaze of the jack-light while the
+      hunter's canoe creeps through the lily-pads. But the charm that masters
+      them is one of dread, not of love. It is the witchcraft of the serpent's
+      lambent look. When they know what it means, when the heat of the fire
+      touches them, or even when its smell comes clearly to their most delicate
+      sense, they recognize it as their enemy, the Wild Huntsman whose red
+      hounds can follow, follow for days without wearying, growing stronger and
+      more furious with every turn of the chase. Let but a trail of smoke drift
+      down the wind across the forest, and all the game for miles and miles will
+      catch the signal for fear and flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many of the animals have learned how to make houses for themselves. The
+      CABANE of the beaver is a wonder of neatness and comfort, much preferable
+      to the wigwam of his Indian hunter. The muskrat knows how thick and high
+      to build the dome of his waterside cottage, in order to protect himself
+      against the frost of the coming winter and the floods of the following
+      spring. The woodchuck's house has two or three doors; and the squirrel's
+      dwelling is provided with a good bed and a convenient storehouse for nuts
+      and acorns. The sportive otters have a toboggan slide in front of their
+      residence; and the moose in winter make a "yard," where they can take
+      exercise comfortably and find shelter for sleep. But there is one thing
+      lacking in all these various dwellings,&mdash;a fireplace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire and to live with it.
+      The reason? Because he alone has learned how to put it out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true that two of his humbler friends have been converted to
+      fire-worship. The dog and the cat, being half-humanized, have begun to
+      love the fire. I suppose that a cat seldom comes so near to feeling a true
+      sense of affection as when she has finished her saucer of bread and milk,
+      and stretched herself luxuriously underneath the kitchen stove, while her
+      faithful mistress washes up the dishes. As for a dog, I am sure that his
+      admiring love for his master is never greater than when they come in
+      together from the hunt, wet and tired, and the man gathers a pile of wood
+      in front of the tent, touches it with a tiny magic wand, and suddenly the
+      clear, consoling flame springs up, saying cheerfully, "Here we are, at
+      home in the forest; come into the warmth; rest, and eat, and sleep." When
+      the weary, shivering dog sees this miracle, he knows that his master is a
+      great man and a lord of things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After all, that is the only real open fire. Wood is the fuel for it.
+      Out-of-doors is the place for it. A furnace is an underground prison for a
+      toiling slave. A stove is a cage for a tame bird. Even a broad hearthstone
+      and a pair of glittering andirons&mdash;the best ornament of a room&mdash;must
+      be accepted as an imitation of the real thing. The veritable open fire is
+      built in the open, with the whole earth for a fireplace and the sky for a
+      chimney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To start a fire in the open is by no means as easy as it looks. It is one
+      of those simple tricks that every one thinks he can perform until he tries
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To do it without trying,&mdash;accidentally and unwillingly,&mdash;that,
+      of course, is a thing for which any fool is fit. You knock out the ashes
+      from your pipe on a fallen log; you toss the end of a match into a patch
+      of grass, green on top, but dry as punk underneath; you scatter the dead
+      brands of an old fire among the moss,&mdash;a conflagration is under way
+      before you know it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fire in the woods is one thing; a comfort and a joy. Fire in the woods
+      is another thing; a terror, an uncontrollable fury, a burning shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the lighting up of a proper fire, kindly, approachable, serviceable,
+      docile, is a work of intelligence. If, perhaps, you have to do it in the
+      rain, with a single match, it requires no little art and skill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is plenty of wood everywhere, but not a bit to burn. The fallen
+      trees are waterlogged. The dead leaves are as damp as grief. The charred
+      sticks that you find in an old fireplace are absolutely incombustible. Do
+      not trust the handful of withered twigs and branches that you gather from
+      the spruce-trees. They seem dry, but they are little better for your
+      purpose than so much asbestos. You make a pile of them in some apparently
+      suitable hollow, and lay a few larger sticks on top. Then you hastily
+      scratch your solitary match on the seat of your trousers and thrust it
+      into the pile of twigs. What happens? The wind whirls around in your
+      stupid little hollow, and the blue flame of the sulphur spirts and
+      sputters for an instant, and then goes out. Or perhaps there is a moment
+      of stillness; the match flares up bravely; the nearest twigs catch fire,
+      crackling and sparkling; you hurriedly lay on more sticks; but the fire
+      deliberately dodges them, creeps to the corner of the pile where the twigs
+      are fewest and dampest, snaps feebly a few times, and expires in smoke.
+      Now where are you? How far is it to the nearest match?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you are wise, you will always make your fire before you light it. Time
+      is never saved by doing a thing badly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II. THE CAMP-FIRE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the making of fires there is as much difference as in the building of
+      houses. Everything depends upon the purpose that you have in view. There
+      is the camp-fire, and the cooking-fire, and the smudge-fire, and the
+      little friendship-fire,&mdash;not to speak of other minor varieties. Each
+      of these has its own proper style of architecture, and to mix them is
+      false art and poor economy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The object of the camp-fire is to give heat, and incidentally light, to
+      your tent or shanty. You can hardly build this kind of a fire unless you
+      have a good axe and know how to chop. For the first thing that you need is
+      a solid backlog, the thicker the better, to hold the heat and reflect it
+      into the tent. This log must not be too dry, or it will burn out quickly.
+      Neither must it be too damp, else it will smoulder and discourage the
+      fire. The best wood for it is the body of a yellow birch, and, next to
+      that, a green balsam. It should be five or six feet long, and at least two
+      and a half feet in diameter. If you cannot find a tree thick enough, cut
+      two or three lengths of a smaller one; lay the thickest log on the ground
+      first, about ten or twelve feet in front of the tent; drive two strong
+      stakes behind it, slanting a little backward; and lay the other logs on
+      top of the first, resting against the stakes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now you are ready for the hand-chunks, or andirons. These are shorter
+      sticks of wood, eight or ten inches thick, laid at right angles to the
+      backlog, four or five feet apart. Across these you are to build up the
+      firewood proper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Use a dry spruce-tree, not one that has fallen, but one that is dead and
+      still standing, if you want a lively, snapping fire. Use a hard maple or a
+      hickory if you want a fire that will burn steadily and make few sparks.
+      But if you like a fire to blaze up at first with a splendid flame, and
+      then burn on with an enduring heat far into the night, a young white birch
+      with the bark on is the tree to choose. Six or eight round sticks of this
+      laid across the hand-chunks, with perhaps a few quarterings of a larger
+      tree, will make a glorious fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before you put these on, you must be ready to light up. A few
+      splinters of dry spruce or pine or balsam, stood endwise against the
+      backlog, or, better still, piled up in a pyramid between the hand-chunks;
+      a few strips of birch-bark; and one good match,&mdash;these are all that
+      you want. But be sure that your match is a good one. It is better to see
+      to this before you go into the brush. Your comfort, even your life, may
+      depend on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "AVEC CES ALLUMETTES-LA," said my guide at LAC ST. JEAN one day, as he
+      vainly tried to light his pipe with a box of parlour matches from the
+      hotel,&mdash;AVEC CES GNOGNOTTES D'ALLUMETTES ON POURRA MOURIR AU BOIS!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the woods, the old-fashioned brimstone match of our grandfathers&mdash;the
+      match with a brown head and a stout stick and a dreadful smell&mdash;is
+      the best. But if you have only one, do not trust even that to light your
+      fire directly. Use it first to touch off a roll of birch-bark which you
+      hold in your hand. Then, when the bark is well alight, crinkling and
+      curling, push it under the heap of kindlings, give the flame time to take
+      a good hold, and lay your wood over it, a stick at a time, until the whole
+      pile is blazing. Now your fire is started. Your friendly little red-haired
+      gnome is ready to serve you through the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He will dry your clothes if you are wet. He will cheer you up if you are
+      despondent. He will diffuse an air of sociability through the camp, and
+      draw the men together in a half circle for storytelling and jokes and
+      singing. He will hold a flambeau for you while you spread your blankets on
+      the boughs and dress for bed. He will keep you warm while you sleep,&mdash;at
+      least till about three o'clock in the morning, when you dream that you are
+      out sleighing in your pajamas, and wake up with a shiver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "HOLA, FERDINAND, FRANCOIS!" you call out from your bed, pulling the
+      blankets over your ears; "RAMANCHEZ LE FEU, S'IL VOUS PLAIT. C'EST UN
+      FREITE DE CHIEN."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III. THE COOKING-FIRE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Of course such a fire as I have been describing can be used for cooking,
+      when it has burned down a little, and there is a bed of hot embers in
+      front of the backlog. But a correct kitchen fire should be constructed
+      after another fashion. What you want now is not blaze, but heat, and that
+      not diffused, but concentrated. You must be able to get close to your fire
+      without burning your boots or scorching your face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you have time and the material, make a fireplace of big stones. But not
+      of granite, for that will split with the heat, and perhaps fly in your
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you are in a hurry and there are no suitable stones at hand, lay two
+      good logs nearly parallel with each other, a foot or so apart, and build
+      your fire between them. For a cooking-fire, use split wood in short
+      sticks. Let the first supply burn to glowing coals before you begin. A
+      frying-pan that is lukewarm one minute and red-hot the next is the
+      abomination of desolation. If you want black toast, have it made before a
+      fresh, sputtering, blazing heap of wood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fires, as in men, an excess of energy is a lack of usefulness. The best
+      work is done without many sparks. Just enough is the right kind of a fire
+      and a feast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To know how to cook is not a very elegant accomplishment. Yet there are
+      times and seasons when it seems to come in better than familiarity with
+      the dead languages, or much skill upon the lute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You cannot always rely on your guides for a tasteful preparation of food.
+      Many of them are ignorant of the difference between frying and broiling,
+      and their notion of boiling a potato or a fish is to reduce it to a pulp.
+      Now and then you find a man who has a natural inclination to the culinary
+      art, and who does very well within familiar limits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Edouard, the Montaignais Indian who cooked for my friends H. E. G. and
+      C. S. D. last summer on the STE. MARGUERITE EN BAS, was such a man. But
+      Edouard could not read, and the only way he could tell the nature of the
+      canned provisions was by the pictures on the cans. If the picture was
+      strange to him, there was no guessing what he would do with the contents
+      of the can. He was capable of roasting strawberries, and serving green
+      peas cold for dessert. One day a can of mullagatawny soup and a can of
+      apricots were handed out to him simultaneously and without explanations.
+      Edouard solved the problem by opening both cans and cooking them together.
+      We had a new soup that day, MULLAGATAWNY AUX APRICOTS. It was not as bad
+      as it sounds. It tasted somewhat like chutney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The real reason why food that is cooked over an open fire tastes so good
+      to us is because we are really hungry when we get it. The man who puts up
+      provisions for camp has a great advantage over the dealers who must
+      satisfy the pampered appetite of people in houses. I never can get any
+      bacon in New York like that which I buy at a little shop in Quebec to take
+      into the woods. If I ever set up in the grocery business, I shall try to
+      get a good trade among anglers. It will be easy to please my customers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reputation that trout enjoy as a food-fish is partly due to the fact
+      that they are usually cooked over an open fire. In the city they never
+      taste as good. It is not merely a difference in freshness. It is a change
+      in the sauce. If the truth must be told, even by an angler, there are at
+      least five salt-water fish which are better than trout,&mdash;to eat.
+      There is none better to catch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV. THE SMUDGE-FIRE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      But enough of the cooking-fire. Let us turn now to the subject of the
+      smudge, known in Lower Canada as LA BOUCANE. The smudge owes its existence
+      to the pungent mosquito, the sanguinary black-fly, and the peppery midge,&mdash;LE
+      MARINGOUIN, LA MOUSTIQUE, ET LE BRULOT. To what it owes its English name I
+      do not know; but its French name means simply a thick, nauseating,
+      intolerable smoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smudge is called into being for the express purpose of creating a
+      smoke of this kind, which is as disagreeable to the mosquito, the
+      black-fly, and the midge as it is to the man whom they are devouring. But
+      the man survives the smoke, while the insects succumb to it, being
+      destroyed or driven away. Therefore the smudge, dark and bitter in itself,
+      frequently becomes, like adversity, sweet in its uses. It must be regarded
+      as a form of fire with which man has made friends under the pressure of a
+      cruel necessity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would seem as if it ought to be the simplest affair in the world to
+      light up a smudge. And so it is&mdash;if you are not trying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An attempt to produce almost any other kind of a fire will bring forth
+      smoke abundantly. But when you deliberately undertake to create a smudge,
+      flames break from the wettest timber, and green moss blazes with a furious
+      heat. You hastily gather handfuls of seemingly incombustible material and
+      throw it on the fire, but the conflagration increases. Grass and green
+      leaves hesitate for an instant and then flash up like tinder. The more you
+      put on, the more your smudge rebels against its proper task of smudging.
+      It makes a pleasant warmth, to encourage the black-flies; and bright light
+      to attract and cheer the mosquitoes. Your effort is a brilliant failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The proper way to make a smudge is this. Begin with a very little, lowly
+      fire. Let it be bright, but not ambitious. Don't try to make a smoke yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then gather a good supply of stuff which seems likely to suppress fire
+      without smothering it. Moss of a certain kind will do, but not the soft,
+      feathery moss that grows so deep among the spruce-trees. Half-decayed wood
+      is good; spongy, moist, unpleasant stuff, a vegetable wet blanket. The
+      bark of dead evergreen trees, hemlock, spruce, or balsam, is better still.
+      Gather a plentiful store of it. But don't try to make a smoke yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let your fire burn a while longer; cheer it up a little. Get some clear,
+      resolute, unquenchable coals aglow in the heart of it. Don't try to make a
+      smoke yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now pile on your smouldering fuel. Fan it with your hat. Kneel down and
+      blow it, and in ten minutes you will have a smoke that will make you wish
+      you had never been born.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is the proper way to make a smudge. But the easiest way is to ask
+      your guide to make it for you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If he makes it in an old iron pot, so much the better, for then you can
+      move it around to the windward when the breeze veers, and carry it into
+      your tent without risk of setting everything on fire, and even take it
+      with you in the canoe while you are fishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of the pleasantest pictures in the angler's gallery of remembrance
+      are framed in the smoke that rises from a smudge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With my eyes shut, I can call up a vision of eight birch-bark canoes
+      floating side by side on Moosehead Lake, on a fair June morning, fifteen
+      years ago. They are anchored off Green Island, riding easily on the long,
+      gentle waves. In the stern of each canoe there is a guide with a
+      long-handled net; in the bow, an angler with a light fly-rod; in the
+      middle, a smudge-kettle, smoking steadily. In the air to the windward of
+      the little fleet hovers a swarm of flies drifting down on the shore
+      breeze, with bloody purpose in their breasts, but baffled by the
+      protecting smoke. In the water to the leeward plays a school of speckled
+      trout, feeding on the minnows that hang around the sunken ledges of rock.
+      As a larger wave than usual passes over the ledges, it lifts the fish up,
+      and you can see the big fellows, three, and four, and even five pounds
+      apiece, poising themselves in the clear brown water. A long cast will send
+      the fly over one of them. Let it sink a foot. Draw it up with a fluttering
+      motion. Now the fish sees it, and turns to catch it. There is a yellow
+      gleam in the depth, a sudden swirl on the surface; you strike sharply, and
+      the trout is matching his strength against the spring of your four ounces
+      of split bamboo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You can guess at his size, as he breaks water, by the breadth of his tail:
+      a pound of weight to an inch of tail,&mdash;that is the traditional
+      measure, and it usually comes pretty close to the mark, at least in the
+      case of large fish. But it is never safe to record the weight until the
+      trout is in the canoe. As the Canadian hunters say, "Sell not the skin of
+      the bear while he carries it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the breeze that blows over Green Island drops away, and the smoke of
+      the eight smudge-kettles falls like a thick curtain. The canoes, the dark
+      shores of Norcross Point, the twin peaks of Spencer Mountain, the dim blue
+      summit of Katahdin, the dazzling sapphire sky, the flocks of fleece-white
+      clouds shepherded on high by the western wind, all have vanished. With
+      closed eyes I see another vision, still framed in smoke,&mdash;a vision of
+      yesterday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a wild river flowing into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the COTE
+      NORD, far down towards Labrador. There is a long, narrow, swift pool
+      between two parallel ridges of rock. Over the ridge on the right pours a
+      cataract of pale yellow foam. At the bottom of the pool, the water slides
+      down into a furious rapid, and dashes straight through an impassable gorge
+      half a mile to the sea. The pool is full of salmon, leaping merrily in
+      their delight at coming into their native stream. The air is full of
+      black-flies, rejoicing in the warmth of the July sun. On a slippery point
+      of rock, below the fall, are two anglers, tempting the fish and enduring
+      the flies. Behind them is an old HABITANT raising a mighty column of
+      smoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the cloudy pillar which keeps back the Egyptian host, you see the
+      waving of a long rod. A silver-gray fly with a barbed tail darts out
+      across the pool, swings around with the current, well under water, and
+      slowly works past the big rock in the centre, just at the head of the
+      rapid. Almost past it, but not quite: for suddenly the fly disappears; the
+      line begins to run out; the reel sings sharp and shrill; a salmon is
+      hooked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how well is he hooked? That is the question. This is no easy pool to
+      play a fish in. There is no chance to jump into a canoe and drop below
+      him, and get the current to help you in drowning him. You cannot follow
+      him along the shore. You cannot even lead him into quiet water, where the
+      gaffer can creep near to him unseen and drag him in with a quick stroke.
+      You must fight your fish to a finish, and all the advantages are on his
+      side. The current is terribly strong. If he makes up his mind to go
+      downstream to the sea, the only thing you can do is to hold him by main
+      force; and then it is ten to one that the hook tears out or the leader
+      breaks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not in human nature for one man to watch another handling a fish in
+      such a place without giving advice. "Keep the tip of your rod up. Don't
+      let your reel overrun. Stir him up a little, he 's sulking. Don't let him
+      'jig,' or you'll lose him. You 're playing him too hard. There, he 's
+      going to jump again. Drop your tip. Stop him, quick! he 's going down the
+      rapid!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course the man who is playing the salmon does not like this. If he is
+      quick-tempered, sooner or later he tells his counsellor to shut up. But if
+      he is a gentle, early-Christian kind of a man, wise as a serpent and
+      harmless as a dove, he follows the advice that is given to him, promptly
+      and exactly. Then, when it is all ended, and he has seen the big fish,
+      with the line over his shoulder, poised for an instant on the crest of the
+      first billow of the rapid, and has felt the leader stretch and give and
+      SNAP!&mdash;then he can have the satisfaction, while he reels in his slack
+      line, of saying to his friend, "Well, old man, I did everything just as
+      you told me. But I think if I had pushed that fish a little harder at the
+      beginning, AS I WANTED TO, I might have saved him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But really, of course, the chances were all against it. In such a pool,
+      most of the larger fish get away. Their weight gives them a tremendous
+      pull. The fish that are stopped from going into the rapid, and dragged
+      back from the curling wave, are usually the smaller ones. Here they are,&mdash;twelve
+      pounds, eight pounds, six pounds, five pounds and a half, FOUR POUNDS! Is
+      not this the smallest salmon that you ever saw? Not a grilse, you
+      understand, but a real salmon, of brightest silver, hall-marked with St.
+      Andrew's cross.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now let us sit down for a moment and watch the fish trying to leap up the
+      falls. There is a clear jump of about ten feet, and above that an
+      apparently impossible climb of ten feet more up a ladder of twisting foam.
+      A salmon darts from the boiling water at the bottom of the fall like an
+      arrow from a bow. He rises in a beautiful curve, fins laid close to his
+      body and tail quivering; but he has miscalculated his distance. He is on
+      the downward curve when the water strikes him and tumbles him back. A bold
+      little fish, not more than eighteen inches long, makes a jump at the side
+      of the fall, where the water is thin, and is rolled over and over in the
+      spray. A larger salmon rises close beside us with a tremendous rush, bumps
+      his nose against a jutting rock, and flops back into the pool. Now comes a
+      fish who has made his calculations exactly. He leaves the pool about eight
+      feet from the foot of the fall, rises swiftly, spreads his fins, and
+      curves his tail as if he were flying, strikes the water where it is
+      thickest just below the brink, holds on desperately, and drives himself,
+      with one last wriggle, through the bending stream, over the edge, and up
+      the first step of the foaming stairway. He has obeyed the strongest
+      instinct of his nature, and gone up to make love in the highest fresh
+      water that he can reach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smoke of the smudge-fire is sharp and tearful, but a man can learn to
+      endure a good deal of it when he can look through its rings at such scenes
+      as these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      V. THE LITTLE FRIENDSHIP-FIRE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There are times and seasons when the angler has no need of any of the
+      three fires of which we have been talking. He sleeps in a house. His
+      breakfast and dinner are cooked for him in a kitchen. He is in no great
+      danger from black-flies or mosquitoes. All he needs now, as he sets out to
+      spend a day on the Neversink, or the Willowemoc, or the Shepaug, or the
+      Swiftwater, is a good lunch in his pocket, and a little friendship-fire to
+      burn pleasantly beside him while he eats his frugal fare and prolongs his
+      noonday rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This form of fire does less work than any other in the world. Yet it is
+      far from being useless; and I, for one, should be sorry to live without
+      it. Its only use is to make a visible centre of interest where there are
+      two or three anglers eating their lunch together, or to supply a kind of
+      companionship to a lone fisherman. It is kindled and burns for no other
+      purpose than to give you the sense of being at home and at ease. Why the
+      fire should do this, I cannot tell, but it does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You may build your friendship-fire in almost any way that pleases you; but
+      this is the way in which you shall build it best. You have no axe, of
+      course, so you must look about for the driest sticks that you can find. Do
+      not seek them close beside the stream, for there they are likely to be
+      water-soaked; but go back into the woods a bit and gather a good armful of
+      fuel. Then break it, if you can, into lengths of about two feet, and
+      construct your fire in the following fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lay two sticks parallel, and put between them a pile of dried grass, dead
+      leaves, small twigs, and the paper in which your lunch was wrapped. Then
+      lay two other sticks crosswise on top of your first pair. Strike your
+      match and touch your kindlings. As the fire catches, lay on other pairs of
+      sticks, each pair crosswise to the pair that is below it, until you have a
+      pyramid of flame. This is "a Micmac fire" such as the Indians make in the
+      woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now you can pull off your wading-boots and warm your feet at the blaze.
+      You can toast your bread if you like. You can even make shift to broil one
+      of your trout, fastened on the end of a birch twig if you have a fancy
+      that way. When your hunger is satisfied, you shake out the crumbs for the
+      birds and the squirrels, pick up a stick with a coal at the end to light
+      your pipe, put some more wood on your fire, and settle down for an hour's
+      reading if you have a book in your pocket, or for a good talk if you have
+      a comrade with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stream of time flows swift and smooth, by such a fire as this. The
+      moments slip past unheeded; the sun sinks down his western arch; the
+      shadows begin to fall across the brook; it is time to move on for the
+      afternoon fishing. The fire has almost burned out. But do not trust it too
+      much. Throw some sand over it, or bring a hatful of water from the brook
+      to pour on it, until you are sure that the last glowing ember is
+      extinguished, and nothing but the black coals and the charred ends of the
+      sticks are left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even the little friendship-fire must keep the law of the bush. All lights
+      out when their purpose is fulfilled!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VI. ALTARS OF REMEMBRANCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It is a question that we have often debated, in the informal meetings of
+      our Petrine Club: Which is pleasanter,&mdash;to fish an old stream, or a
+      new one?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger members are all for the "fresh woods and pastures new." They
+      speak of the delight of turning off from the high-road into some
+      faintly-marked trail; following it blindly through the forest, not knowing
+      how far you have to go; hearing the voice of waters sounding through the
+      woodland; leaving the path impatiently and striking straight across the
+      underbrush; scrambling down a steep bank, pushing through a thicket of
+      alders, and coming out suddenly, face to face with a beautiful, strange
+      brook. It reminds you, of course, of some old friend. It is a little like
+      the Beaverkill, or the Ausable, or the Gale River. And yet it is
+      different. Every stream has its own character and disposition. Your new
+      acquaintance invites you to a day of discoveries. If the water is high,
+      you will follow it down, and have easy fishing. If the water is low, you
+      will go upstream, and fish "fine and far-off." Every turn in the avenue
+      which the little river has made for you opens up a new view,&mdash;a rocky
+      gorge where the deep pools are divided by white-footed falls; a lofty
+      forest where the shadows are deep and the trees arch overhead; a flat,
+      sunny stretch where the stream is spread out, and pebbly islands divide
+      the channels, and the big fish are lurking at the sides in the sheltered
+      corners under the bushes. From scene to scene you follow on, delighted and
+      expectant, until the night suddenly drops its veil, and then you will be
+      lucky if you can find your way home in the dark!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, it is all very good, this exploration of new streams. But, for my
+      part, I like still better to go back to a familiar little river, and fish
+      or dream along the banks where I have dreamed and fished before. I know
+      every bend and curve: the sharp turn where the water runs under the roots
+      of the old hemlock-tree; the snaky glen, where the alders stretch their
+      arms far out across the stream; the meadow reach, where the trout are fat
+      and silvery, and will only rise about sunrise or sundown, unless the day
+      is cloudy; the Naiad's Elbow, where the brook rounds itself, smooth and
+      dimpled, to embrace a cluster of pink laurel-bushes. All these I know;
+      yes, and almost every current and eddy and backwater I know long before I
+      come to it. I remember where I caught the big trout the first year I came
+      to the stream; and where I lost a bigger one. I remember the pool where
+      there were plenty of good fish last year, and wonder whether they are
+      there now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Better things than these I remember: the companions with whom I have
+      followed the stream in days long past; the rendezvous with a comrade at
+      the place where the rustic bridge crosses the brook; the hours of sweet
+      converse beside the friendship-fire; the meeting at twilight with my lady
+      Graygown and the children, who have come down by the wood-road to walk
+      home with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely it is pleasant to follow an old stream. Flowers grow along its
+      banks which are not to be found anywhere else in the wide world. "There is
+      rosemary, that 's for remembrance; and there is pansies, that 's for
+      thoughts!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One May evening, a couple of years since, I was angling in the Swiftwater,
+      and came upon Joseph Jefferson, stretched out on a large rock in
+      midstream, and casting the fly down a long pool. He had passed the
+      threescore years and ten, but he was as eager and as happy as a boy in his
+      fishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You here!" I cried. "What good fortune brought you into these waters?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," he answered, "I fished this brook forty-five years ago. It was in
+      the Paradise Valley that I first thought of Rip Van Winkle. I wanted to
+      come back again for the sake of old times."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what has all this to do with an open fire? I will tell you. It is at
+      the places along the stream, where the little flames of love and
+      friendship have been kindled in bygone days, that the past returns most
+      vividly. These are the altars of remembrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is strange how long a small fire will leave its mark. The charred
+      sticks, the black coals, do not decay easily. If they lie well up the
+      hank, out of reach of the spring floods, they will stay there for years.
+      If you have chanced to build a rough fireplace of stones from the brook,
+      it seems almost as if it would last forever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a mossy knoll beneath a great butternut-tree on the Swiftwater
+      where such a fireplace was built four years ago; and whenever I come to
+      that place now I lay the rod aside, and sit down for a little while by the
+      fast-flowing water, and remember.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is what I see: A man wading up the stream, with a creel over his
+      shoulder, and perhaps a dozen trout in it; two little lads in gray
+      corduroys running down the path through the woods to meet him, one
+      carrying a frying-pan and a kettle, the other with a basket of lunch on
+      his arm. Then I see the bright flames leaping up in the fireplace, and
+      hear the trout sizzling in the pan, and smell the appetizing odour. Now I
+      see the lads coming back across the foot-bridge that spans the stream,
+      with a bottle of milk from the nearest farmhouse. They are laughing and
+      teetering as they balance along the single plank. Now the table is spread
+      on the moss. How good the lunch tastes! Never were there such pink-fleshed
+      trout, such crisp and savoury slices of broiled bacon. Douglas, (the
+      beloved doll that the younger lad shamefacedly brings out from the pocket
+      of his jacket,) must certainly have some of it. And after the lunch is
+      finished, and the bird's portion has been scattered on the moss, we creep
+      carefully on our hands and knees to the edge of the brook, and look over
+      the bank at the big trout that is poising himself in the amber water. We
+      have tried a dozen times to catch him, but never succeeded. The next time,
+      perhaps&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, the fireplace is still standing. The butternut-tree spreads its
+      broad branches above the stream. The violets and the bishop's-caps and the
+      wild anemones are sprinkled over the banks. The yellow-throat and the
+      water-thrush and the vireos still sing the same tunes in the thicket. And
+      the elder of the two lads often comes back with me to that pleasant place
+      and shares my fisherman's luck beside the Swiftwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the younger lad?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, my little Barney, you have gone to follow a new stream,&mdash;clear as
+      crystal,&mdash;flowing through fields of wonderful flowers that never
+      fade. It is a strange river to Teddy and me; strange and very far away.
+      Some day we shall see it with you; and you will teach us the names of
+      those blossoms that do not wither. But till then, little Barney, the other
+      lad and I will follow the old stream that flows by the woodland fireplace,&mdash;your
+      altar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rue grows here. Yes, there is plenty of rue. But there is also rosemary,
+      that 's for remembrance! And close beside it I see a little heart's-ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A SLUMBER SONG FOR THE FISHERMAN'S CHILD
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          Furl your sail, my little boatie;
+              Here 's the haven, still and deep,
+          Where the dreaming tides, in-streaming,
+                   Up the channel creep.
+          See, the sunset breeze is dying;
+          Hark, the plover, landward flying,
+          Softly down the twilight crying;
+              Come to anchor, little boatie,
+                  In the port of Sleep.
+
+          Far away, my little boatie,
+              Roaring waves are white with foam;
+          Ships are striving, onward driving,
+                  Day and night they roam.
+          Father 's at the deep-sea trawling,
+          In the darkness, rowing, hauling,
+          While the hungry winds are calling,&mdash;
+             God protect him, little boatie,
+                  Bring him safely home!
+
+          Not for you, my little boatie,
+              Is the wide and weary sea;
+          You 're too slender, and too tender,
+                  You must rest with me.
+          All day long you have been straying
+          Up and down the shore and playing;
+          Come to port, make no delaying!
+              Day is over, little boatie,
+                  Night falls suddenly.
+
+          Furl your sail, my little boatie;
+              Fold your wings, my tired dove.
+          Dews are sprinkling, stars are twinkling
+                  Drowsily above.
+          Cease from sailing, cease from rowing;
+          Rock upon the dream-tide, knowing
+          Safely o'er your rest are glowing,
+              All the night, my little boatie,
+                  Harbour-lights of love.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fisherman's Luck, by Henry van Dyke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fisherman's Luck
+
+Author: Henry van Dyke
+
+Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #1139]
+Release Date: August, 1997
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FISHERMAN'S LUCK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+FISHERMAN'S LUCK AND SOME OTHER UNCERTAIN THINGS
+
+by Henry van Dyke
+
+
+     "Now I conclude that not only in Physicke, but likewise in
+     sundry more certaine arts, fortune hath great share in
+     them."
+
+     M. DE MONTAIGNE: Divers Events.
+
+
+DEDICATION TO MY LADY GRAYGOWN
+
+
+Here is the basket; I bring it home to you. There are no great fish in
+it. But perhaps there may be one or two little ones which will be to
+your taste. And there are a few shining pebbles from the bed of the
+brook, and ferns from the cool, green woods, and wild flowers from the
+places that you remember. I would fain console you, if I could, for the
+hardship of having married an angler: a man who relapses into his mania
+with the return of every spring, and never sees a little river without
+wishing to fish in it. But after all, we have had good times together as
+we have followed the stream of life towards the sea. And we have passed
+through the dark days without losing heart, because we were comrades.
+So let this book tell you one thing that is certain. In all the life of
+your fisherman the best piece of luck is just YOU.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   I.  Fisherman's Luck
+
+  II.  The Thrilling Moment
+
+ III.  Talkability
+
+  IV.  A Wild Strawberry
+
+   V.  Lovers and Landscape
+
+  VI.  A Fatal Success
+
+ VII.  Fishing in Books
+
+VIII. A Norwegian Honeymoon
+
+  IX.  Who Owns the Mountains?
+
+   X.  A Lazy, Idle Brook
+
+  XI.  The Open Fire
+
+ XII.  A Slumber Song
+
+
+
+
+FISHERMAN'S LUCK
+
+
+Has it ever fallen in your way to notice the quality of the greetings
+that belong to certain occupations?
+
+There is something about these salutations in kind which is singularly
+taking and grateful to the ear. They are as much better than an ordinary
+"good day" or a flat "how are you?" as a folk-song of Scotland or the
+Tyrol is better than the futile love-ditty of the drawing-room. They
+have a spicy and rememberable flavour. They speak to the imagination and
+point the way to treasure-trove.
+
+There is a touch of dignity in them, too, for all they are so free and
+easy--the dignity of independence, the native spirit of one who takes
+for granted that his mode of living has a right to make its own forms of
+speech. I admire a man who does not hesitate to salute the world in the
+dialect of his calling.
+
+How salty and stimulating, for example, is the sailorman's hail of "Ship
+ahoy!" It is like a breeze laden with briny odours and a pleasant dash
+of spray. The miners in some parts of Germany have a good greeting for
+their dusky trade. They cry to one who is going down the shaft, "Gluck
+auf!" All the perils of an underground adventure and all the joys
+of seeing the sun again are compressed into a word. Even the trivial
+salutation which the telephone has lately created and claimed for its
+peculiar use--"Hello, hello"--seems to me to have a kind of fitness
+and fascination. It is like a thoroughbred bulldog, ugly enough to be
+attractive. There is a lively, concentrated, electric air about it. It
+makes courtesy wait upon dispatch, and reminds us that we live in an age
+when it is necessary to be wide awake.
+
+I have often wished that every human employment might evolve its own
+appropriate greeting. Some of them would be queer, no doubt; but
+at least they would be an improvement on the wearisome iteration of
+"Good-evening" and "Good-morning," and the monotonous inquiry, "How
+do you do?"--a question so meaningless that it seldom tarries for an
+answer. Under the new and more natural system of etiquette, when you
+passed the time of day with a man you would know his business, and the
+salutations of the market-place would be full of interest.
+
+As for my chosen pursuit of angling (which I follow with diligence when
+not interrupted by less important concerns), I rejoice with every true
+fisherman that it has a greeting all its own and of a most honourable
+antiquity. There is no written record of its origin. But it is quite
+certain that since the days after the Flood, when Deucalion
+
+
+     "Did first this art invent
+      Of angling, and his people taught the same,"
+
+
+two honest and good-natured anglers have never met each other by the way
+without crying out, "What luck?"
+
+Here, indeed, is an epitome of the gentle art. Here is the spirit of
+it embodied in a word and paying its respects to you with its native
+accent. Here you see its secret charms unconsciously disclosed. The
+attraction of angling for all the ages of man, from the cradle to the
+grave, lies in its uncertainty. 'Tis an affair of luck.
+
+No amount of preparation in the matter of rods and lines and hooks
+and lures and nets and creels can change its essential character.
+No excellence of skill in casting the delusive fly or adjusting the
+tempting bait upon the hook can make the result secure. You may reduce
+the chances, but you cannot eliminate them. There are a thousand points
+at which fortune may intervene. The state of the weather, the height of
+the water, the appetite of the fish, the presence or absence of other
+anglers--all these indeterminable elements enter into the reckoning of
+your success. There is no combination of stars in the firmament by which
+you can forecast the piscatorial future. When you go a-fishing, you just
+take your chances; you offer yourself as a candidate for anything that
+may be going; you try your luck.
+
+There are certain days that are favourites among anglers, who regard
+them as propitious for the sport. I know a man who believes that the
+fish always rise better on Sunday than on any other day in the week. He
+complains bitterly of this supposed fact, because his religious scruples
+will not allow him to take advantage of it. He confesses that he has
+sometimes thought seriously of joining the Seventh-Day Baptists.
+
+Among the Pennsylvania Dutch, in the Alleghany Mountains, I have found
+a curious tradition that Ascension Day is the luckiest in the year
+for fishing. On that morning the district school is apt to be thinly
+attended, and you must be on the stream very early if you do not wish to
+find wet footprints on the stones ahead of you.
+
+But in fact, all these superstitions about fortunate days are idle and
+presumptuous. If there were such days in the calendar, a kind and firm
+Providence would never permit the race of man to discover them. It
+would rob life of one of its principal attractions, and make fishing
+altogether too easy to be interesting.
+
+Fisherman's luck is so notorious that it has passed into a proverb.
+But the fault with that familiar saying is that it is too short and too
+narrow to cover half the variations of the angler's possible experience.
+For if his luck should be bad, there is no portion of his anatomy,
+from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, that may not be
+thoroughly wet. But if it should be good, he may receive an unearned
+blessing of abundance not only in his basket, but also in his head and
+his heart, his memory and his fancy. He may come home from some obscure,
+ill-named, lovely stream--some Dry Brook, or Southwest Branch of
+Smith's Run--with a creel full of trout, and a mind full of grateful
+recollections of flowers that seemed to bloom for his sake, and birds
+that sang a new, sweet, friendly message to his tired soul. He may climb
+down to "Tommy's Rock" below the cliffs at Newport (as I have done many
+a day with my lady Greygown), and, all unnoticed by the idle, weary
+promenaders in the path of fashion, haul in a basketful of blackfish,
+and at the same time look out across the shining sapphire waters and
+inherit a wondrous good fortune of dreams--
+
+
+     "Have glimpses that will make him less forlorn;
+      Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
+      Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
+
+
+But all this, you must remember, depends upon something secret and
+incalculable, something that we can neither command nor predict. It is
+an affair of gift, not of wages. Fish (and the other good things which
+are like sauce to the catching of them) cast no shadow before. Water is
+the emblem of instability. No one can tell what he shall draw out of
+it until he has taken in his line. Herein are found the true charm and
+profit of angling for all persons of a pure and childlike mind.
+
+Look at those two venerable gentlemen floating in a skiff upon the
+clear waters of Lake George. One of them is a successful statesman, an
+ex-President of the United States, a lawyer versed in all the curious
+eccentricities of the "lawless science of the law." The other is a
+learned doctor of medicine, able to give a name to all diseases from
+which men have imagined that they suffered, and to invent new ones
+for those who are tired of vulgar maladies. But all their learning is
+forgotten, their cares and controversies are laid aside, in "innocuous
+desuetude." The Summer School of Sociology is assembled. The Medical
+Congress is in session.
+
+But they care not--no, not so much as the value of a single live bait.
+The sun shines upon them with a fervent heat, but it irks them not.
+The rain descends, and the winds blow and beat upon them, but they
+are unmoved. They are securely anchored here in the lee of Sabbath-Day
+Point.
+
+What enchantment binds them to that inconsiderable spot? What magic
+fixes their eyes upon the point of a fishing-rod, as if it were the
+finger of destiny? It is the enchantment of uncertainty: the same
+natural magic that draws the little suburban boys in the spring of the
+year, with their strings and pin-hooks, around the shallow ponds where
+dace and redfins hide; the same irresistible charm that fixes a row of
+city gamins, like ragged and disreputable fish-crows, on the end of a
+pier where blear-eyed flounders sometimes lurk in the muddy water. Let
+the philosopher explain it as he will. Let the moralist reprehend it as
+he chooses. There is nothing that attracts human nature more powerfully
+than the sport of tempting the unknown with a fishing-line.
+
+Those ancient anglers have set out upon an exodus from the tedious realm
+of the definite, the fixed, the must-certainly-come-to-pass. They are on
+a holiday in the free country of peradventure. They do not know at this
+moment whether the next turn of Fortune's reel will bring up a perch or
+a pickerel, a sunfish or a black bass. It may be a hideous catfish or
+a squirming eel, or it may be a lake-trout, the grand prize in the Lake
+George lottery. There they sit, those gray-haired lads, full of hope,
+yet equally prepared for resignation; taking no thought for the morrow,
+and ready to make the best of to-day; harmless and happy players at the
+best of all games of chance.
+
+"In other words," I hear some severe and sour-complexioned reader say,
+"in plain language, they are a pair of old gamblers."
+
+Yes, if it pleases you to call honest men by a bad name. But they
+risk nothing that is not their own; and if they lose, they are not
+impoverished. They desire nothing that belongs to other men; and if
+they win, no one is robbed. If all gambling were like that, it would be
+difficult to see the harm in it. Indeed, a daring moralist might even
+assert, and prove by argument, that so innocent a delight in the taking
+of chances is an aid to virtue.
+
+Do you remember Martin Luther's reasoning on the subject of "excellent
+large pike"? He maintains that God would never have created them so good
+to the taste, if He had not meant them to be eaten. And for the same
+reason I conclude that this world would never have been left so full of
+uncertainties, nor human nature framed so as to find a peculiar joy and
+exhilaration in meeting them bravely and cheerfully, if it had not been
+divinely intended that most of our amusement and much of our education
+should come from this source.
+
+"Chance" is a disreputable word, I know. It is supposed by many pious
+persons to be improper and almost blasphemous to use it. But I am not
+one of those who share this verbal prejudice. I am inclined rather to
+believe that it is a good word to which a bad reputation has been
+given. I feel grateful to that admirable "psychologist who writes like a
+novelist," Mr. William James, for his brilliant defence of it. For what
+does it mean, after all, but that some things happen in a certain way
+which might have happened in another way? Where is the immorality, the
+irreverence, the atheism in such a supposition? Certainly God must be
+competent to govern a world in which there are possibilities of various
+kinds, just as well as one in which every event is inevitably determined
+beforehand. St. Peter and the other fishermen-disciples on the Lake
+of Galilee were perfectly free to cast their net on either side of the
+ship. So far as they could see, so far as any one could see, it was a
+matter of chance where they chose to cast it. But it was not until they
+let it down, at the Master's word, on the right side that they had good
+luck. And not the least element of their joy in the draft of fishes was
+that it brought a change of fortune.
+
+Leave the metaphysics of the question on the table for the present. As
+a matter of fact, it is plain that our human nature is adapted to
+conditions variable, undetermined, and hidden from our view. We are
+not fitted to live in a world where a + b always equals c, and there is
+nothing more to follow. The interest of life's equation arrives with the
+appearance of x, the unknown quantity. A settled, unchangeable, clearly
+foreseeable order of things does not suit our constitution. It tends to
+melancholy and a fatty heart. Creatures of habit we are undoubtedly; but
+it is one of our most fixed habits to be fond of variety. The man who
+is never surprised does not know the taste of happiness, and unless the
+unexpected sometimes happens to us, we are most grievously disappointed.
+
+Much of the tediousness of highly civilized life comes from its
+smoothness and regularity. To-day is like yesterday, and we think that
+we can predict to-morrow. Of course we cannot really do so. The
+chances are still there. But we have covered them up so deeply with
+the artificialities of life that we lose sight of them. It seems as if
+everything in our neat little world were arranged, and provided for,
+and reasonably sure to come to pass. The best way of escape from this
+TAEDIUM VITAE is through a recreation like angling, not only because it
+is so evidently a matter of luck, but also because it tempts us into a
+wilder, freer life. It leads almost inevitably to camping out, which is
+a wholesome and sanitary imprudence.
+
+It is curious and pleasant, to my apprehension, to observe how many
+people in New England, one of whose States is called "the land of Steady
+Habits," are sensible of the joy of changing them,--out of doors. These
+good folk turn out from their comfortable farm-houses and their snug
+suburban cottages to go a-gypsying for a fortnight among the mountains
+or beside the sea. You see their white tents gleaming from the
+pine-groves around the little lakes, and catch glimpses of their
+bathing-clothes drying in the sun on the wiry grass that fringes the
+sand-dunes. Happy fugitives from the bondage of routine! They have found
+out that a long journey is not necessary to a good vacation. You may
+reach the Forest of Arden in a buckboard. The Fortunate Isles are within
+sailing distance in a dory. And a voyage on the river Pactolus is open
+to any one who can paddle a canoe.
+
+I was talking--or rather listening--with a barber, the other day, in
+the sleepy old town of Rivermouth. He told me, in one of those easy
+confidences which seem to make the razor run more smoothly, that it had
+been the custom of his family, for some twenty years past, to forsake
+their commodious dwelling on Anchor Street every summer, and emigrate
+six miles, in a wagon to Wallis Sands, where they spent the month of
+August very merrily under canvas. Here was a sensible household for
+you! They did not feel bound to waste a year's income on a four weeks'
+holiday. They were not of those foolish folk who run across the sea,
+carefully carrying with them the same tiresome mind that worried them
+at home. They got a change of air by making an alteration of life. They
+escaped from the land of Egypt by stepping out into the wilderness and
+going a-fishing.
+
+The people who always live in houses, and sleep on beds, and walk on
+pavements, and buy their food from butchers and bakers and grocers, are
+not the most blessed inhabitants of this wide and various earth. The
+circumstances of their existence are too mathematical and secure
+for perfect contentment. They live at second or third hand. They are
+boarders in the world. Everything is done for them by somebody else.
+
+It is almost impossible for anything very interesting to happen to them.
+They must get their excitement out of the newspapers, reading of the
+hairbreadth escapes and moving accidents that befall people in real
+life. What do these tame ducks really know of the adventure of living?
+If the weather is bad, they are snugly housed. If it is cold, there is
+a furnace in the cellar. If they are hungry, the shops are near at hand.
+It is all as dull, flat, stale, and unprofitable as adding up a column
+of figures. They might as well be brought up in an incubator.
+
+But when man abides in tents, after the manner of the early patriarchs,
+the face of the world is renewed. The vagaries of the clouds become
+significant. You watch the sky with a lover's look, eager to know
+whether it will smile or frown. When you lie at night upon your bed of
+boughs and hear the rain pattering on the canvas close above your head,
+you wonder whether it is a long storm or only a shower.
+
+The rising wind shakes the tent-flaps. Are the pegs well driven down and
+the cords firmly fastened? You fall asleep again and wake later, to
+hear the rain drumming still more loudly on the tight cloth, and the
+big breeze snoring through the forest, and the waves plunging along
+the beach. A stormy day? Well, you must cut plenty of wood and keep the
+camp-fire glowing, for it will be hard to start it up again, if you
+let it get too low. There is little use in fishing or hunting in such a
+storm. But there is plenty to do in the camp: guns to be cleaned, tackle
+to be put in order, clothes to be mended, a good story of adventure to
+be read, a belated letter to be written to some poor wretch in a summer
+hotel, a game of hearts or cribbage to be played, or a hunting-trip to
+be planned for the return of fair weather. The tent is perfectly dry. A
+little trench dug around it carries off the surplus water, and luckily
+it is pitched with the side to the lake, so that you get the pleasant
+heat of the fire without the unendurable smoke. Cooking in the rain has
+its disadvantages. But how good the supper tastes when it is served up
+on a tin plate, with an empty box for a table and a roll of blankets at
+the foot of the bed for a seat!
+
+A day, two days, three days, the storm may continue, according to your
+luck. I have been out in the woods for a fortnight without a drop of
+rain or a sign of dust. Again, I have tented on the shore of a big lake
+for a week, waiting for an obstinate tempest to pass by.
+
+Look now, just at nightfall: is there not a little lifting and breaking
+of the clouds in the west, a little shifting of the wind toward a
+better quarter? You go to bed with cheerful hopes. A dozen times in the
+darkness you are half awake, and listening drowsily to the sounds of the
+storm. Are they waxing or waning? Is that louder pattering a new burst
+of rain, or is it only the plumping of the big drops as they are shaken
+from the trees? See, the dawn has come, and the gray light glimmers
+through the canvas. In a little while you will know your fate.
+
+Look! There is a patch of bright yellow radiance on the peak of the
+tent. The shadow of a leaf dances over it. The sun must be shining. Good
+luck! and up with you, for it is a glorious morning.
+
+The woods are glistening as fresh and fair as if they had been
+new-created overnight. The water sparkles, and tiny waves are dancing
+and splashing all along the shore. Scarlet berries of the mountain-ash
+hang around the lake. A pair of kingfishers dart back and forth across
+the bay, in flashes of living blue. A black eagle swings silently around
+his circle, far up in the cloudless sky. The air is full of pleasant
+sounds, but there is no noise. The world is full of joyful life, but
+there is no crowd and no confusion. There is no factory chimney to
+darken the day with its smoke, no trolley-car to split the silence with
+its shriek and smite the indignant ear with the clanging of its impudent
+bell. No lumberman's axe has robbed the encircling forests of their
+glory of great trees. No fires have swept over the hills and left behind
+them the desolation of a bristly landscape. All is fresh and sweet, calm
+and clear and bright.
+
+'Twas rather a rude jest of Nature, that tempest of yesterday. But
+if you have taken it in good part, you are all the more ready for her
+caressing mood to-day. And now you must be off to get your dinner--not
+to order it at a shop, but to look for it in the woods and waters. You
+are ready to do your best with rod or gun. You will use all the skill
+you have as hunter or fisherman. But what you shall find, and
+whether you shall subsist on bacon and biscuit, or feast on trout and
+partridges, is, after all, a matter of luck.
+
+I profess that it appears to me not only pleasant, but also salutary, to
+be in this condition. It brings us home to the plain realities of life;
+it teaches us that a man ought to work before he eats; it reminds us
+that, after he has done all he can, he must still rely upon a mysterious
+bounty for his daily bread. It says to us, in homely and familiar words,
+that life was meant to be uncertain, that no man can tell what a day
+will bring forth, and that it is the part of wisdom to be prepared for
+disappointments and grateful for all kinds of small mercies.
+
+There is a story in that fragrant book, THE LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST.
+FRANCIS, which I wish to transcribe here, without tying a moral to it,
+lest any one should accuse me of preaching.
+
+
+"Hence [says the quaint old chronicler], having assigned to his
+companions the other parts of the world, St. Francis, taking Brother
+Maximus as his comrade, set forth toward the province of France. And
+coming one day to a certain town, and being very hungry, they begged
+their bread as they went, according to the rule of their order, for the
+love of God. And St. Francis went through one quarter of the town, and
+Brother Maximus through another. But forasmuch as St. Francis was a man
+mean and low of stature, and hence was reputed a vile beggar by such as
+knew him not, he only received a few scanty crusts and mouthfuls of dry
+bread. But to Brother Maximus, who was large and well favoured, were
+given good pieces and big, and an abundance of bread, yea, whole loaves.
+Having thus begged, they met together without the town to eat, at a
+place where there was a clear spring and a fair large stone, upon which
+each spread forth the gifts that he had received. And St. Francis,
+seeing that the pieces of bread begged by Brother Maximus were bigger
+and better than his own, rejoiced greatly, saying, 'Oh, Brother Maximus,
+we are not worthy of so great a treasure.' As he repeated these words
+many times, Brother Maximus made answer: 'Father, how can you talk of
+treasures when there is such great poverty and such lack of all things
+needful? Here is neither napkin nor knife, neither board nor trencher,
+neither house nor table, neither man-servant nor maid-servant.' St.
+Francis replied: 'And this is what I reckon a great treasure, where
+naught is made ready by human industry, but all that is here is prepared
+by Divine Providence, as is plainly set forth in the bread which we have
+begged, in the table of fair stone, and in the spring of clear water.
+And therefore I would that we should pray to God that He teach us with
+all our hearts to love the treasure of holy poverty, which is so noble a
+thing, and whose servant is God the Lord.'"
+
+
+I know of but one fairer description of a repast in the open air; and
+that is where we are told how certain poor fishermen, coming in very
+weary after a night of toil (and one of them very wet after swimming
+ashore), found their Master standing on the bank of the lake waiting for
+them. But it seems that he must have been busy in their behalf while he
+was waiting; for there was a bright fire of coals burning on the shore,
+and a goodly fish broiling thereon, and bread to eat with it. And when
+the Master had asked them about their fishing, he said, "Come, now, and
+get your breakfast." So they sat down around the fire, and with his own
+hands he served them with the bread and the fish.
+
+Of all the banquets that have ever been given upon earth, that is the
+one in which I would rather have had a share.
+
+But it is now time that we should return to our fishing. And let
+us observe with gratitude that almost all of the pleasures that are
+connected with this pursuit--its accompaniments and variations, which
+run along with the tune and weave an embroidery of delight around
+it--have an accidental and gratuitous quality about them. They are not
+to be counted upon beforehand. They are like something that is thrown
+into a purchase by a generous and open-handed dealer, to make us pleased
+with our bargain and inclined to come back to the same shop.
+
+If I knew, for example, before setting out for a day on the brook,
+precisely what birds I should see, and what pretty little scenes in the
+drama of woodland life were to be enacted before my eyes, the expedition
+would lose more than half its charm. But, in fact, it is almost entirely
+a matter of luck, and that is why it never grows tiresome.
+
+The ornithologist knows pretty well where to look for the birds, and
+he goes directly to the places where he can find them, and proceeds to
+study them intelligently and systematically. But the angler who idles
+down the stream takes them as they come, and all his observations have a
+flavour of surprise in them.
+
+He hears a familiar song,--one that he has often heard at a distance,
+but never identified,--a loud, cheery, rustic cadence sounding from
+a low pine-tree close beside him. He looks up carefully through the
+needles and discovers a hooded warbler, a tiny, restless creature,
+dressed in green and yellow, with two white feathers in its tail, like
+the ends of a sash, and a glossy little black bonnet drawn closely about
+its golden head. He will never forget that song again. It will make the
+woods seem homelike to him, many a time, as he hears it ringing
+through the afternoon, like the call of a small country girl playing at
+hide-and-seek: "See ME; here I BE."
+
+Another day he sits down on a mossy log beside a cold, trickling spring
+to eat his lunch. It has been a barren day for birds. Perhaps he has
+fallen into the fault of pursuing his sport too intensely, and tramped
+along the stream looking for nothing but fish. Perhaps this part of the
+grove has really been deserted by its feathered inhabitants, scared
+away by a prowling hawk or driven out by nest-hunters. But now, without
+notice, the luck changes. A surprise-party of redstarts breaks into full
+play around him. All through the dark-green shadow of the hemlocks
+they flash like little candles--CANDELITAS, the Cubans call them. Their
+brilliant markings of orange and black, and their fluttering, airy,
+graceful movements, make them most welcome visitors. There is no bird in
+the bush easier to recognize or pleasanter to watch. They run along
+the branches and dart and tumble through the air in fearless chase of
+invisible flies and moths. All the time they keep unfolding and furling
+their rounded tails, spreading them out and waving them and closing
+them suddenly, just as the Cuban girls manage their fans. In fact, the
+redstarts are the tiny fantail pigeons of the forest.
+
+There are other things about the birds, besides their musical talents
+and their good looks, that the fisherman has a chance to observe on his
+lucky days. He may sea something of their courage and their devotion to
+their young.
+
+I suppose a bird is the bravest creature that lives, in spite of its
+natural timidity. From which we may learn that true courage is not
+incompatible with nervousness, and that heroism does not mean the
+absence of fear, but the conquest of it. Who does not remember the first
+time that he ever came upon a hen-partridge with her brood, as he was
+strolling through the woods in June? How splendidly the old bird forgets
+herself in her efforts to defend and hide her young!
+
+Smaller birds are no less daring. One evening last summer I was walking
+up the Ristigouche from Camp Harmony to fish for salmon at Mowett's
+Rock, where my canoe was waiting for me. As I stepped out from a thicket
+on to the shingly bank of the river, a spotted sandpiper teetered along
+before me, followed by three young ones. Frightened at first, the mother
+flew out a few feet over the water. But the piperlings could not fly,
+having no feathers; and they crept under a crooked log. I rolled the log
+over very gently and took one of the cowering creatures into my hand--a
+tiny, palpitating scrap of life, covered with soft gray down, and
+peeping shrilly, like a Liliputian chicken. And now the mother was
+transformed. Her fear was changed into fury. She was a bully, a fighter,
+an Amazon in feathers. She flew at me with loud cries, dashing herself
+almost into my face. I was a tyrant, a robber, a kidnapper, and she
+called heaven to witness that she would never give up her offspring
+without a struggle. Then she changed her tactics and appealed to my
+baser passions. She fell to the ground and fluttered around me as if her
+wing were broken. "Look!" she seemed to say, "I am bigger than that poor
+little baby. If you must eat something, eat me! My wing is lame. I can't
+fly. You can easily catch me. Let that little bird go!" And so I
+did; and the whole family disappeared in the bushes as if by magic. I
+wondered whether the mother was saying to herself, after the manner of
+her sex, that men are stupid things, after all, and no match for the
+cleverness of a female who stoops to deception in a righteous cause.
+
+Now, that trivial experience was what I call a piece of good luck--for
+me, and, in the event, for the sandpiper. But it is doubtful whether it
+would be quite so fresh and pleasant in the remembrance, if it had not
+also fallen to my lot to take two uncommonly good salmon on that same
+evening, in a dry season.
+
+Never believe a fisherman when he tells you that he does not care about
+the fish he catches. He may say that he angles only for the pleasure of
+being out-of-doors, and that he is just as well contented when he takes
+nothing as when he makes a good catch. He may think so, but it is not
+true. He is not telling a deliberate falsehood. He is only assuming an
+unconscious pose, and indulging in a delicate bit of self-flattery. Even
+if it were true, it would not be at all to his credit.
+
+Watch him on that lucky day when he comes home with a full basket of
+trout on his shoulder, or a quartette of silver salmon covered with
+green branches in the bottom of the canoe. His face is broader than it
+was when he went out, and there is a sparkle of triumph in his eye.
+"It is naught, it is naught," he says, in modest depreciation of his
+triumph. But you shall see that he lingers fondly about the place
+where the fish are displayed upon the grass, and does not fail to look
+carefully at the scales when they are weighed, and has an attentive ear
+for the comments of admiring spectators. You shall find, moreover, that
+he is not unwilling to narrate the story of the capture--how the big
+fish rose short, four times, to four different flies, and finally took a
+small Black Dose, and played all over the pool, and ran down a terribly
+stiff rapid to the next pool below, and sulked for twenty minutes, and
+had to be stirred up with stones, and made such a long fight that, when
+he came in at last, the hold of the hook was almost worn through, and it
+fell out of his mouth as he touched the shore. Listen to this tale as
+it is told, with endless variations, by every man who has brought home
+a fine fish, and you will perceive that the fisherman does care for his
+luck, after all.
+
+And why not? I am no friend to the people who receive the bounties of
+Providence without visible gratitude. When the sixpence falls into your
+hat, you may laugh. When the messenger of an unexpected blessing takes
+you by the hand and lifts you up and bids you walk, you may leap and run
+and sing for joy, even as the lame man, whom St. Peter healed, skipped
+piously and rejoiced aloud as he passed through the Beautiful Gate of
+the Temple. There is no virtue in solemn indifference. Joy is just as
+much a duty as beneficence is. Thankfulness is the other side of mercy.
+
+When you have good luck in anything, you ought to be glad. Indeed, if
+you are not glad, you are not really lucky.
+
+But boasting and self-glorification I would have excluded, and most
+of all from the behaviour of the angler. He, more than other men, is
+dependent for his success upon the favour of an unseen benefactor. Let
+his skill and industry be never so great, he can do nothing unless LA
+BONNE CHANCE comes to him.
+
+I was once fishing on a fair little river, the P'tit Saguenay, with two
+excellent anglers and pleasant companions, H. E. G---- and C. S. D----.
+They had done all that was humanly possible to secure good sport. The
+stream had been well preserved. They had boxes full of beautiful flies,
+and casting-lines imported from England, and a rod for every fish in the
+river. But the weather was "dour," and the water "drumly," and every day
+the lumbermen sent a "drive" of ten thousand spruce logs rushing down
+the flooded stream. For three days we had not seen a salmon, and on the
+fourth, despairing, we went down to angle for sea-trout in the tide of
+the greater Saguenay. There, in the salt water, where men say the salmon
+never take the fly, H. E. G----, fishing with a small trout-rod, a poor,
+short line, and an ancient red ibis of the common kind, rose and hooked
+a lordly salmon of at least five-and-thirty pounds. Was not this pure
+luck?
+
+Pride is surely the most unbecoming of all vices in a fisherman. For
+though intelligence and practice and patience and genius, and many
+other noble things which modesty forbids him to mention, enter into his
+pastime, so that it is, as Izaak Walton has firmly maintained, an art;
+yet, because fortune still plays a controlling hand in the game, its net
+results should never be spoken of with a haughty and vain spirit. Let
+not the angler imitate Timoleon, who boasted of his luck and lost it. It
+is tempting Providence to print the record of your wonderful catches in
+the sporting newspapers; or at least, if it must be done, there should
+stand at the head of the column some humble, thankful motto, like "NON
+NOBIS, DOMINE." Even Father Izaak, when he has a fish on his line, says,
+with a due sense of human limitations, "There is a trout now, and a good
+one too, IF I CAN BUT HOLD HIM!"
+
+This reminds me that we left H. E. G----, a few sentences back, playing
+his unexpected salmon, on a trout-rod, in the Saguenay. Four times that
+great fish leaped into the air; twice he suffered the pliant reed to
+guide him toward the shore, and twice ran out again to deeper water.
+Then his spirit awoke within him: he bent the rod like a willow wand,
+dashed toward the middle of the river, broke the line as if it had been
+pack-thread, and sailed triumphantly away to join the white porpoises
+that were tumbling in the tide. "WHE-E-EW," they said, "WHE-E-EW!
+PSHA-A-AW!" blowing out their breath in long, soft sighs as they rolled
+about like huge snowballs in the black water. But what did H. E. G----
+say? He sat him quietly down upon a rock and reeled in the remnant
+of his line, uttering these remarkable and Christian words: "Those
+porpoises," said he, "describe the situation rather mildly. But it was
+good fun while it lasted."
+
+Again I remembered a saying of Walton: "Well, Scholar, you must endure
+worse luck sometimes, or you will never make a good angler."
+
+Or a good man, either, I am sure. For he who knows only how to enjoy,
+and not to endure, is ill-fitted to go down the stream of life through
+such a world as this.
+
+I would not have you to suppose, gentle reader, that in discoursing of
+fisherman's luck I have in mind only those things which may be taken
+with a hook. It is a parable of human experience. I have been thinking,
+for instance, of Walton's life as well as of his angling: of the losses
+and sufferings that he, the firm Royalist, endured when the Commonwealth
+men came marching into London town; of the consoling days that were
+granted to him, in troublous times, on the banks of the Lea and the Dove
+and the New River, and the good friends that he made there, with whom
+he took sweet counsel in adversity; of the little children who played
+in his house for a few years, and then were called away into the silent
+land where he could hear their voices no longer. I was thinking how
+quietly and peaceably he lived through it all, not complaining nor
+desponding, but trying to do his work well, whether he was keeping a
+shop or writing hooks, and seeking to prove himself an honest man and
+a cheerful companion, and never scorning to take with a thankful heart
+such small comforts and recreations as came to him.
+
+It is a plain, homely, old-fashioned meditation, reader, but not
+unprofitable. When I talk to you of fisherman's luck, I do not forget
+that there are deeper things behind it. I remember that what we call our
+fortunes, good or ill, are but the wise dealings and distributions of a
+Wisdom higher, and a Kindness greater, than our own. And I suppose that
+their meaning is that we should learn, by all the uncertainties of our
+life, even the smallest, how to be brave and steady and temperate and
+hopeful, whatever comes, because we believe that behind it all there
+lies a purpose of good, and over it all there watches a providence of
+blessing.
+
+In the school of life many branches of knowledge are taught. But the
+only philosophy that amounts to anything, after all, is just the secret
+of making friends with our luck.
+
+
+
+
+THE THRILLING MOMENT
+
+
+     "In angling, as in all other recreations into which
+     excitement enters, we have to be on our guard, so that we
+     can at any moment throw a weight of self-control into the
+     scale against misfortune; and happily we can study to some
+     purpose, both to increase our pleasure in success and to
+     lessen our distress caused by what goes ill.  It is not only
+     in cases of great disasters, however, that the angler needs
+     self-control.  He is perpetually called upon to use it to
+     withstand small exasperations."
+
+     --SIR EDWARD GREY: Fly-Fishing.
+
+
+Every moment of life, I suppose, is more or less of a turning-point.
+Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, thicker than gnats
+at sundown. We walk through a cloud of chances, and if we were always
+conscious of them they would worry us almost to death.
+
+But happily our sense of uncertainty is soothed and cushioned by habit,
+so that we can live comfortably with it. Only now and then, by way of
+special excitement, it starts up wide awake. We perceive how delicately
+our fortune is poised and balanced on the pivot of a single incident. We
+get a peep at the oscillating needle, and, because we have happened to
+see it tremble, we call our experience a crisis.
+
+The meditative angler is not exempt from these sensational periods.
+There are times when all the uncertainty of his chosen pursuit seems
+to condense itself into one big chance, and stand out before him like
+a salmon on the top wave of a rapid. He sees that his luck hangs by a
+single strand, and he cannot tell whether it will hold or break. This is
+his thrilling moment, and he never forgets it.
+
+Mine came to me in the autumn of 1894, on the banks of the
+Unpronounceable River, in the Province of Quebec. It was the last day,
+of the open season for ouananiche, and we had set our hearts on catching
+some good fish to take home with us. We walked up from the mouth of
+the river, four preposterously long and rough miles, to the famous
+fishing-pool, "LA PLACE DE PECHE A BOIVIN." It was a noble day for
+walking; the air was clear and crisp, and all the hills around us
+were glowing with the crimson foliage of those little bushes which
+God created to make burned lands look beautiful. The trail ended in
+a precipitous gully, down which we scrambled with high hopes, and
+fishing-rods unbroken, only to find that the river was in a condition
+which made angling absurd if not impossible.
+
+There must have been a cloud-burst among the mountains, for the water
+was coming down in flood. The stream was bank-full, gurgling and eddying
+out among the bushes, and rushing over the shoal where the fish used to
+lie, in a brown torrent ten feet deep. Our last day with the land-locked
+salmon seemed destined to be a failure, and we must wait eight
+months before we could have another. There were three of us in the
+disappointment, and we shared it according to our temperaments.
+
+Paul virtuously resolved not to give up while there was a chance left,
+and wandered down-stream to look for an eddy where he might pick up a
+small fish. Ferdinand, our guide, resigned himself without a sigh to
+the consolation of eating blueberries, which he always did with great
+cheerfulness. But I, being more cast down than either of my comrades,
+sought out a convenient seat among the rocks, and, adapting my anatomy
+as well as possible to the irregularities of nature's upholstery, pulled
+from my pocket AN AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE DALE, and settled down
+to read myself into a Christian frame of mind.
+
+Before beginning, my eyes roved sadly over the pool once more. It
+was but a casual glance. It lasted only for an instant. But in that
+fortunate fragment of time I distinctly saw the broad tail of a big
+ouananiche rise and disappear in the swift water at the very head of the
+pool.
+
+Immediately the whole aspect of affairs was changed. Despondency
+vanished, and the river glittered with the beams of rising hope.
+
+Such is the absurd disposition of some anglers. They never see a fish
+without believing that they can catch him; but if they see no fish, they
+are inclined to think that the river is empty and the world hollow.
+
+I said nothing to my companions. It would have been unkind to disturb
+them with expectations which might never be realized. My immediate duty
+was to get within casting distance of that salmon as soon as possible.
+
+The way along the shore of the pool was difficult. The bank was very
+steep, and the rocks by the river's edge were broken and glibbery.
+Presently I came to a sheer wall of stone, perhaps thirty feet high,
+rising directly from the deep water.
+
+There was a tiny ledge or crevice running part of the way across the
+face of this wall, and by this four-inch path I edged along, holding
+my rod in one hand, and clinging affectionately with the other to such
+clumps of grass and little bushes as I could find. There was one
+small huckleberry plant to which I had a particular attachment. It was
+fortunately a firm little bush, and as I held fast to it I remembered
+Tennyson's poem which begins
+
+
+     "Flower in the crannied wall,"
+
+
+and reflected that if I should succeed in plucking out this flower,
+"root and all," it would probably result in an even greater increase of
+knowledge than the poet contemplated.
+
+The ledge in the rock now came to an end. But below me in the pool there
+was a sunken reef; and on this reef a long log had caught, with one
+end sticking out of the water, within jumping distance. It was the only
+chance. To go back would have been dangerous. An angler with a large
+family dependent upon him for support has no right to incur unnecessary
+perils.
+
+Besides, the fish was waiting for me at the upper end of the pool!
+
+So I jumped; landed on the end of the log; felt it settle slowly down;
+ran along it like a small boy on a seesaw, and leaped off into shallow
+water just as the log rolled from the ledge and lunged out into the
+stream.
+
+It went wallowing through the pool and down the rapid like a playful
+hippopotamus. I watched it with interest and congratulated myself that
+I was no longer embarked upon it. On that craft a voyage down the
+Unpronounceable River would have been short but far from merry. The "all
+ashore" bell was not rung early enough. I just got off, with not half a
+second to spare.
+
+But now all was well, for I was within reach of the fish. A little
+scrambling over the rocks brought me to a point where I could easily
+cast over him. He was lying in a swift, smooth, narrow channel between
+two large stones. It was a snug resting-place, and no doubt he would
+remain there for some time. So I took out my fly-book and prepared to
+angle for him according to the approved rules of the art.
+
+Nothing is more foolish in sport than the habit of precipitation.
+And yet it is a fault to which I am singularly subject. As a boy, in
+Brooklyn, I never came in sight of the Capitoline Skating Pond, after a
+long ride in the horse-cars, without breaking into a run along the board
+walk, buckling on my skates in a furious hurry, and flinging myself
+impetuously upon the ice, as if I feared that it would melt away before
+I could reach it. Now this, I confess, is a grievous defect, which
+advancing years have not entirely cured; and I found it necessary to
+take myself firmly, as it were, by the mental coat-collar, and
+resolve not to spoil the chance of catching the only ouananiche in the
+Unpronounceable River by undue haste in fishing for him.
+
+I carefully tested a brand-new leader, and attached it to the line with
+great deliberation and the proper knot. Then I gave my whole mind to the
+important question of a wise selection of flies.
+
+It is astonishing how much time and mental anxiety a man can spend on
+an apparently simple question like this. When you are buying flies in a
+shop it seems as if you never had half enough. You keep on picking out
+a half-dozen of each new variety as fast as the enticing salesman shows
+them to you. You stroll through the streets of Montreal or Quebec and
+drop in at every fishing-tackle dealer's to see whether you can find a
+few more good flies. Then, when you come to look over your collection at
+the critical moment on the bank of a stream, it seems as if you had ten
+times too many. And, spite of all, the precise fly that you need is not
+there.
+
+You select a couple that you think fairly good, lay them down beside you
+in the grass, and go on looking through the book for something better.
+Failing to satisfy yourself, you turn to pick up those that you have
+laid out, and find that they have mysteriously vanished from the face of
+the earth.
+
+Then you struggle with naughty words and relapse into a condition of
+mental palsy.
+
+Precipitation is a fault. But deliberation, for a person of precipitate
+disposition, is a vice.
+
+The best thing to do in such a case is to adopt some abstract theory of
+action without delay, and put it into practice without hesitation. Then
+if you fail, you can throw the responsibility on the theory.
+
+Now, in regard to flies there are two theories. The old, conservative
+theory is, that on a bright day you should use a dark, dull fly, because
+it is less conspicuous. So I followed that theory first and put on a
+Great Dun and a Dark Montreal. I cast them delicately over the fish, but
+he would not look at them.
+
+Then I perverted myself to the new, radical theory which says that on a
+bright day you must use a light, gay fly, because it is more in harmony
+with the sky, and therefore less noticeable. Accordingly I put on a
+Professor and a Parmacheene Belle; but this combination of learning and
+beauty had no attraction for the ouananiche.
+
+Then I fell back on a theory of my own, to the effect that the
+ouananiche have an aversion to red, and prefer yellow and brown. So I
+tried various combinations of flies in which these colours predominated.
+
+Then I abandoned all theories and went straight through my book, trying
+something from every page, and winding up with that lure which the
+guides consider infallible,--"a Jock o' Scott that cost fifty cents at
+Quebec." But it was all in vain. I was ready to despair.
+
+At this psychological moment I heard behind me a voice of hope,--the
+song of a grasshopper: not one of those fat-legged, green-winged
+imbeciles that feebly tumble in the summer fields, but a game
+grasshopper,--one of those thin-shanked, brown-winged fellows that leap
+like kangaroos, and fly like birds, and sing KRI-KAREE-KAREE-KRI in
+their flight.
+
+It is not really a song, I know, but it sounds like one; and, if you had
+heard that Kri-karee carolling as I chased him over the rocks, you would
+have been sure that he was mocking me.
+
+I believed that he was the predestined lure for that ouananiche; but it
+was hard to persuade him to fulfill his destiny. I slapped at him
+with my hat, but he was not there. I grasped at him on the bushes, and
+brought away "nothing but leaves." At last he made his way to the very
+edge of the water and poised himself on a stone, with his legs well
+tucked in for a long leap and a bold flight to the other side of the
+river. It was my final opportunity. I made a desperate grab at it and
+caught the grasshopper.
+
+My premonition proved to be correct. When that Kri-karee, invisibly
+attached to my line, went floating down the stream, the ouananiche was
+surprised. It was the fourteenth of September, and he had supposed the
+grasshopper season was over. The unexpected temptation was too strong
+for him. He rose with a rush, and in an instant I was fast to the best
+land-locked salmon of the year.
+
+But the situation was not without its embarrassments. My rod weighed
+only four and a quarter ounces; the fish weighed between six and seven
+pounds. The water was furious and headstrong. I had only thirty yards of
+line and no landing-net.
+
+"HOLA! FERDINAND!" I cried. "APPORTE LA NETTE, VITE! A BEAUTY! HURRY
+UP!"
+
+I thought it must be an hour while he was making his way over the hill,
+through the underbrush, around the cliff. Again and again the fish ran
+out my line almost to the last turn. A dozen times he leaped from the
+water, shaking his silvery sides. Twice he tried to cut the leader
+across a sunken ledge. But at last he was played out, and came in
+quietly towards the point of the rock. At the same moment Ferdinand
+appeared with the net.
+
+Now, the use of the net is really the most difficult part of angling.
+And Ferdinand is the best netsman in the Lake St. John country. He never
+makes the mistake of trying to scoop a fish in motion. He does not grope
+around with aimless, futile strokes as if he were feeling for something
+in the dark. He does not entangle the dropper-fly in the net and tear
+the tail-fly out of the fish's mouth. He does not get excited.
+
+He quietly sinks the net in the water, and waits until he can see the
+fish distinctly, lying perfectly still and within reach. Then he makes a
+swift movement, like that of a mower swinging the scythe, takes the fish
+into the net head-first, and lands him without a slip.
+
+I felt sure that Ferdinand was going to do the trick in precisely this
+way with my ouananiche. Just at the right instant he made one quick,
+steady swing of the arms, and--the head of the net broke clean off the
+handle and went floating away with the fish in it!
+
+All seemed to be lost. But Ferdinand was equal to the occasion. He
+seized a long, crooked stick that lay in a pile of driftwood on the
+shore, sprang into the water up to his waist, caught the net as it
+drifted past, and dragged it to land, with the ultimate ouananiche, the
+prize of the season, still glittering through its meshes.
+
+This is the story of my most thrilling moment as an angler.
+
+But which was the moment of the deepest thrill?
+
+Was it when the huckleberry bush saved me from a watery grave, or when
+the log rolled under my feet and started down the river? Was it when the
+fish rose, or when the net broke, or when the long stick captured it?
+
+No, it was none of these. It was when the Kri-karee sat with his legs
+tucked under him on the brink of the stream. That was the turning-point.
+The fortunes of the day depended on the comparative quickness of the
+reflex action of his neural ganglia and mine. That was the thrilling
+moment.
+
+I see it now. A crisis is really the commonest thing in the world. The
+reason why life sometimes seems dull to us is because we do not perceive
+the importance and the excitement of getting bait.
+
+
+
+
+TALKABILITY
+
+A PRELUDE AND THEME WITH VARIATIONS
+
+
+     "He praises a meditative life, and with evident sincerity:
+     but we feel that he liked nothing so well as good talk."
+
+     --JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: Walton.
+
+
+
+
+I. PRELUDE--ON AN OLD, FOOLISH MAXIM
+
+
+The inventor of the familiar maxim that "fishermen must not talk" is
+lost in the mists of antiquity, and well deserves his fate. For a more
+foolish rule, a conventionality more obscure and aimless in its tyranny,
+was never imposed upon an innocent and honourable occupation, to
+diminish its pleasure and discount its profits. Why, in the name of all
+that is genial, should anglers go about their harmless sport in stealthy
+silence like conspirators, or sit together in a boat, dumb, glum, and
+penitential, like naughty schoolboys on the bench of disgrace? 'Tis
+an Omorcan superstition; a rule without a reason; a venerable, idiotic
+fashion invented to repress lively spirits and put a premium on
+stupidity.
+
+For my part, I incline rather to the opinion of the Neapolitan fishermen
+who maintain that a certain amount of noise, of certain kinds, is likely
+to improve the fishing, and who have a particular song, very sweet
+and charming, which they sing to draw the fishes around them. It is
+narrated, likewise, of the good St. Brandan, that on his notable voyage
+from Ireland in search of Paradise, he chanted the service for St.
+Peter's day so pleasantly that a subaqueous audience of all sorts and
+sizes was attracted, insomuch that the other monks began to be afraid,
+and begged the abbot that he would sing a little lower, for they were
+not quite sure of the intention of the congregation. Of St. Anthony of
+Padua it is said that he even succeeded in persuading the fishes, in
+great multitudes, to listen to a sermon; and that when it was ended
+(it must be noted that it was both short and cheerful) they bowed their
+heads and moved their bodies up and down with every mark of fondness and
+approval of what the holy father had spoken.
+
+If we can believe this, surely we need not be incredulous of things
+which seem to be no less, but rather more, in harmony with the course
+of nature. Creatures who are sensible to the attractions of a sermon can
+hardly be indifferent to the charm of other kinds of discourse. I can
+easily imagine a company of grayling wishing to overhear a conversation
+between I. W. and his affectionate (but somewhat prodigal) son and
+servant, Charles Cotton; and surely every intelligent salmon in Scotland
+might have been glad to hear Christopher North and the Ettrick
+Shepherd bandy jests and swap stories. As for trout,--was there one in
+Massachusetts that would not have been curious to listen to the
+intimate opinions of Daniel Webster as he loafed along the banks of
+the Marshpee,--or is there one in Pennsylvania to-day that might not be
+drawn with interest and delight to the feet of Joseph Jefferson,
+telling how he conceived and wrote RIP VAN WINKLE on the banks of a
+trout-stream?
+
+Fishermen must be silent? On the contrary, it is far more likely that
+good talk may promote good fishing.
+
+All this, however, goes upon the assumption that fish can hear, in
+the proper sense of the word. And this, it must be confessed, is an
+assumption not yet fully verified. Experienced anglers and students of
+fishy ways are divided upon the question. It is beyond a doubt that all
+fishes, except the very lowest forms, have ears. But then so have all
+men; and yet we have the best authority for believing that there are
+many who "having ears, hear not."
+
+The ears of fishes, for the most part, are inclosed in their skull, and
+have no outward opening. Water conveys sound, as every country boy
+knows who has tried the experiment of diving to the bottom of the
+swimming-hole and knocking two big stones together. But I doubt whether
+any country boy, engaged in this interesting scientific experiment, has
+heard the conversation of his friends on the bank who were engaged in
+hiding his clothes.
+
+There are many curious and more or less venerable stories to the effect
+that fishes may be trained to assemble at the ringing of a bell or the
+beating of a drum. Lucian, a writer of the second century, tells of a
+certain lake wherein many sacred fishes were kept, of which the largest
+had names given to them, and came when they were called. But Lucian
+was not a man of especially good reputation, and there is an air of
+improbability about his statement that the LARGEST fishes came. This is
+not the custom of the largest fishes.
+
+In the present century there was a tale of an eel in a garden-well, in
+Scotland, which would come to be fed out of a spoon when the children
+called him by his singularly inappropriate name of Rob Roy. This seems
+a more likely story than Lucian's; at all events it comes from a more
+orthodox atmosphere. But before giving it full credence, I should like
+to know whether the children, when they called "Rob Roy!" stood where
+the eel could see the spoon.
+
+On the other side of the question, we may quote Mr. Ronalds, also a
+Scotchman, and the learned author of THE FLY-FISHER'S ENTOMOLOGY, who
+conducted a series of experiments which proved that even trout, the most
+fugacious of fish, are not in the least disturbed by the discharge of a
+gun, provided the flash is concealed. Mr. Henry P. Wells, the author of
+THE AMERICAN SALMON ANGLER, says that he has "never been able to make a
+sound in the air which seemed to produce the slightest effect upon trout
+in the water."
+
+So the controversy on the hearing of fishes continues, and the
+conclusion remains open. Every man is at liberty to embrace that side
+which pleases him best. You may think that the finny tribes are as
+sensitive to sound as Fine Ear, in the German fairy-tale, who could hear
+the grass grow. Or you may hold the opposite opinion, that they are
+
+
+     "Deafer than the blue-eyed cat."
+
+
+But whichever theory you adopt, in practice, if you are a wise
+fisherman, you will steer a middle course, between one thing which must
+be left undone and another thing which should be done. You will refrain
+from stamping on the bank, or knocking on the side of the boat, or
+dragging the anchor among the stones on the bottom; for when the water
+vibrates the fish are likely to vanish. But you will indulge as freely
+as you please in pleasant discourse with your comrade; for it is certain
+that fishing is never hindered, and may even be helped, in one way or
+another, by good talk.
+
+I should therefore have no hesitation in advising any one to choose, for
+companionship on an angling expedition, long or short, a person who has
+the rare merit of being TALKABLE.
+
+
+
+
+II. THEME--ON A SMALL, USEFUL VIRTUE
+
+
+"Talkable" is not a new adjective. But it needs a new definition, and
+the complement of a corresponding noun. I would fain set down on paper
+some observations and reflections which may serve to make its meaning
+clear, and render due praise to that most excellent quality in man
+or woman,--especially in anglers,--the small but useful virtue of
+TALKABILITY.
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson uses the word "talkable" in one of his essays
+to denote a certain distinction among the possible subjects of human
+speech. There are some things, he says in effect, about which you can
+really talk; and there are other things about which you cannot properly
+talk at all, but only dispute, or harangue, or prose, or moralize, or
+chatter.
+
+After mature consideration I have arrived at the opinion that this
+distinction among the themes of speech is an illusion. It does not
+exist. All subjects, "the foolish things of the world, and the weak
+things of the world, and base things of the world, yea, and things that
+are not," may provide matter for good talk, if only the right people are
+engaged in the enterprise. I know a man who can make a description of
+the weather as entertaining as a tune on the violin; and even on the
+threadbare theme of the waywardness of domestic servants, I have heard a
+discreet woman play the most diverting and instructive variations.
+
+No, the quality of talkability does not mark a distinction among things;
+it denotes a difference among people. It is not an attribute unequally
+distributed among material objects and abstract ideas. It is a virtue
+which belongs to the mind and moral character of certain persons. It
+is a reciprocal human quality; active as well as passive; a power of
+bestowing and receiving.
+
+An amiable person is one who has a capacity for loving and being loved.
+An affable person is one who is ready to speak and to be spoken to,--as,
+for example, Milton's "affable archangel" Raphael; though it must be
+confessed that he laid the chief emphasis on the active side of his
+affability. A "clubable" person (to use a word which Dr. Samuel Johnson
+invented but did not put into his dictionary) is one who is fit for the
+familiar give and take of club-life. A talkable person, therefore, is
+one whose nature and disposition invite the easy interchange of thoughts
+and feelings, one in whose company it is a pleasure to talk or to be
+talked to.
+
+Now this good quality of talkability is to be distinguished, very
+strictly and inflexibly, from the bad quality which imitates it and
+often brings it into discredit. I mean the vice of talkativeness. That
+is a selfish, one-sided, inharmonious affair, full of discomfort, and
+productive of most unchristian feelings.
+
+You may observe the operations of this vice not only in human beings,
+but also in birds. All the birds in the bush can make some kind of a
+noise; and most of them like to do it; and some of them like it a great
+deal and do it very much. But it is not always for edification, nor are
+the most vociferous and garrulous birds commonly the most pleasing. A
+parrot, for instance, in your neighbour's back yard, in the summer time,
+when the windows are open, is not an aid to the development of Christian
+character. I knew a man who had to stay in the city all summer, and in
+the autumn was asked to describe the character and social standing of
+a new family that had moved into his neighbourhood. Were they "nice
+people," well-bred, intelligent, respectable? "Well," said he, "I don't
+know what your standards are, and would prefer not to say anything
+libellous; but I'll tell you in a word,--they are the kind of people
+that keep a parrot."
+
+Then there is the English Sparrow! What an insufferable chatterbox,
+what an incurable scold, what a voluble and tiresome blackguard is this
+little feathered cockney. There is not a sweet or pleasant word in all
+his vocabulary.
+
+I am convinced that he talks altogether of scandals and fights and
+street-sweepings.
+
+The kingdom of ornithology is divided into two departments,--real birds
+and English sparrows. English sparrows are not real birds; they are
+little beasts.
+
+There was a church in Brooklyn which was once covered with a great and
+spreading vine, in which the sparrows built innumerable nests. These
+ungodly little birds kept up such a din that it was impossible to hear
+the service of the sanctuary. The faithful clergy strained their voices
+to the verge of ministerial sore throat, but the people had no peace in
+their devotions until the vine was cut down, and the Anglican intruders
+were evicted.
+
+A talkative person is like an English sparrow,--a bird that cannot
+sing, and will sing, and ought to be persuaded not to try to sing. But
+a talkable person has the gift that belongs to the wood thrush and
+the veery and the wren, the oriole and the white-throat and the
+rose-breasted grosbeak, the mockingbird and the robin (sometimes); and
+the brown thrush; yes, the brown thrush has it to perfection, if you can
+catch him alone,--the gift of being interesting, charming, delightful,
+in the most off-hand and various modes of utterance.
+
+Talkability is not at all the same thing as eloquence. The eloquent man
+surprises, overwhelms, and sometimes paralyzes us by the display of his
+power. Great orators are seldom good talkers. Oratory in exercise is
+masterful and jealous, and intolerant of all interruptions. Oratory in
+preparation is silent, self-centred, uncommunicative. The painful
+truth of this remark may be seen in the row of countenances along the
+president's table at a public banquet about nine o'clock in the evening.
+The bicycle-face seems unconstrained and merry by comparison with
+the after-dinner-speech-face. The flow of table-talk is corked by the
+anxious conception of post-prandial oratory.
+
+Thackeray, in one of his ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, speaks of "the sin
+of tall-talking," which, he says, "is the sin of schoolmasters,
+governesses, critics, sermoners, and instructors of young or old
+people." But this is not in accord with my observation. I should say it
+was rather the sin of dilettanti who are ambitious of that high-stepping
+accomplishment which is called "conversational ability."
+
+This has usually, to my mind, something set and artificial about it,
+although in its most perfect form the art almost succeeds in concealing
+itself. But, at all events, ''conversation'' is talk in evening dress,
+with perhaps a little powder and a touch of rouge. 'T is like one of
+those wise virgins who are said to look their best by lamplight. And
+doubtless this is an excellent thing, and not without its advantages.
+But for my part, commend me to one who loses nothing by the early
+morning illumination,--one who brings all her attractions with her when
+she comes down to breakfast,--she is a very pleasant maid.
+
+Talk is that form of human speech which is exempt from all duties,
+foreign and domestic. It is the nearest thing in the world to thinking
+and feeling aloud. It is necessarily not for publication,--solely an
+evidence of good faith and mutual kindness. You tell me what you have
+seen and what you are thinking about, because you take it for granted
+that it will interest and entertain me; and you listen to my replies and
+the recital of my adventures and opinions, because you know I like
+to tell them, and because you find something in them, of one kind or
+another, that you care to hear. It is a nice game, with easy, simple
+rules, and endless possibilities of variation. And if we go into it
+with the right spirit, and play it for love, without heavy stakes, the
+chances are that if we happen to be fairly talkable people we shall have
+one of the best things in the world,--a mighty good talk.
+
+What is there in this anxious, hide-bound, tiresome existence of ours,
+more restful and remunerative? Montaigne says, "The use of it is more
+sweet than of any other action of life; and for that reason it is that,
+if I were compelled to choose, I should sooner, I think, consent to lose
+my sight than my hearing and speech." The very aimlessness with which
+it proceeds, the serene disregard of all considerations of profit and
+propriety with which it follows its wandering course, and brings up
+anywhere or nowhere, to camp for the night, is one of its attractions.
+It is like a day's fishing, not valuable chiefly for the fish you bring
+home, but for the pleasant country through which it leads you, and the
+state of personal well-being and health in which it leaves you, warmed,
+and cheered, and content with life and friendship.
+
+The order in which you set out upon a talk, the path which you pursue,
+the rules which you observe or disregard, make but little difference
+in the end. You may follow the advice of Immanuel Kant if you like, and
+begin with the weather and the roads, and go on to current events, and
+wind up with history, art, and philosophy. Or you may reverse the order
+if you prefer, like that admirable talker Clarence King, who usually set
+sail on some highly abstract paradox, such as "Civilization is a nervous
+disease," and landed in a tale of adventure in Mexico or the Rocky
+Mountains. Or you may follow the example of Edward Eggleston, who
+started in at the middle and worked out at either end, and sometimes at
+both. It makes no difference. If the thing is in you at all, you will
+find good matter for talk anywhere along the route. Hear what Montaigne
+says again: "In our discourse all subjects are alike to me; let there
+be neither weight nor depth, 't is all one; there is yet grace and
+pertinence; all there is tented with a mature and constant judgment, and
+mixed with goodness, freedom, gayety, and friendship."
+
+How close to the mark the old essayist sends his arrow! He is right
+about the essential qualities of good talk. They are not merely
+intellectual. They are moral. Goodness of heart, freedom of spirit,
+gayety of temper, and friendliness of disposition,--these are four fine
+things, and doubtless as acceptable to God as they are agreeable to men.
+The talkability which springs out of these qualities has its roots in a
+good soil. On such a plant one need not look for the poison berries of
+malign discourse, nor for the Dead Sea apples of frivolous mockery.
+But fair fruit will be there, pleasant to the sight and good for food,
+brought forth abundantly according to the season.
+
+
+
+
+III. VARIATIONS--ON A PLEASANT PHRASE FROM MONTAIGNE
+
+
+Montaigne has given as our text, "Goodness, freedom, gayety, and
+friendship,"--these are the conditions which produce talkability. And
+on this fourfold theme we may embroider a few variations, by way of
+exposition and enlargement.
+
+GOODNESS is the first thing and the most needful. An ugly, envious,
+irritable disposition is not fitted for talk. The occasions for offence
+are too numerous, and the way into strife is too short and easy. A
+touch of good-natured combativeness, a fondness for brisk argument, a
+readiness to try a friendly bout with any comer, on any ground, is a
+decided advantage in a talker. It breaks up the offensive monotony of
+polite concurrence, and makes things lively. But quarrelsomeness is
+quite another affair, and very fatal.
+
+I am always a little uneasy in a discourse with the Reverend Bellicosus
+Macduff. It is like playing golf on links liable to earthquakes. One
+never knows when the landscape will be thrown into convulsions. Macduff
+has a tendency to regard a difference of opinion as a personal insult.
+If he makes a bad stroke he seems to think that the way to retrieve it
+is to deliver the next one on the head of the other player. He does
+not tarry for the invitation to lay on; and before you know what has
+happened you find yourself in a position where you are obliged to cry,
+"Hold, enough!" and to be liberally damned without any bargain to that
+effect. This is discouraging, and calculated to make one wish that human
+intercourse might be put, as far as Macduff is concerned, upon the gold
+basis of silence.
+
+On the other hand, what a delight it was to talk with that old worthy,
+Chancellor Howard Crosby. He was a fighting man for four or five
+generations hack, Dutch on one side, English on the other. But there was
+not one little drop of gall in his blood. His opinions were fixed to a
+degree; he loved to do battle for them; he never changed them--at least
+never in the course of the same discussion. He admired and respected
+a gallant adversary, and urged him on, with quips and puns and daring
+assaults and unqualified statements, to do his best. Easy victories were
+not to his taste. Even if he joined with you in laying out some common
+falsehood for burial, you might be sure that before the affair was
+concluded there would be every prospect of what an Irishman would call
+"an elegant wake." If you stood up against him on one of his favorite
+subjects of discussion you must be prepared for hot work. You would have
+to take off your coat. But when the combat was over he would be the man
+to help you on with it again; and you would walk home together arm in
+arm, through the twilight, smoking the pipe of peace. Talk like that
+does good. It quickens the beating of the heart, and leaves no scars
+upon it.
+
+But this manly spirit, which loves
+
+
+     "To drink delight of battle with its peers,"
+
+
+is a very different thing from that mean, bad, hostile temper which
+loves to inflict wounds and injuries just for the sake of showing power,
+and which is never so happy as when it is making some one wince. There
+are such people in the world, and sometimes their brilliancy tempts us
+to forget their malignancy. But to have much converse with them is as if
+we should make playmates of rattlesnakes for their grace of movement and
+swiftness of stroke.
+
+I knew a man once (I will not name him even with an initial) who was
+malignant to the core. Learned, industrious, accomplished, he kept
+all his talents at the service of a perfect genius for hatred. If you
+crossed his path but once, he would never cease to curse you. The grave
+might close over you, but he would revile your epitaph and mock at your
+memory. It was not even necessary that you should do anything to incur
+his enmity. It was enough to be upright and sincere and successful, to
+waken the wrath of this Shimei. Integrity was an offence to him, and
+excellence of any kind filled him with spleen. There was no good cause
+within his horizon that he did not give a bad word to, and no decent
+man in the community whom he did not try either to use or to abuse. To
+listen to him or to read what he had written was to learn to think a
+little worse of every one that he mentioned, and worst of all of him. He
+had the air of a gentleman, the vocabulary of a scholar, the style of a
+Junius, and the heart of a Thersites.
+
+Talk, in such company, is impossible. The sense of something evil,
+lurking beneath the play of wit, is like the knowledge that there are
+snakes in the grass. Every step must be taken with fear. But the
+real pleasure of a walk through the meadow comes from the feeling of
+security, of ease, of safe and happy abandon to the mood of the moment.
+This ungirdled and unguarded felicity in mutual discourse depends, after
+all, upon the assurance of real goodness in your companion. I do not
+mean a stiff impeccability of conduct. Prudes and Pharisees are poor
+comrades. I mean simply goodness of heart, the wholesome, generous,
+kindly quality which thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, hopeth
+all things, endureth all things, and wisheth well to all men. Where you
+feel this quality you can let yourself go, in the ease of hearty talk.
+
+FREEDOM is the second note that Montaigne strikes, and it is essential
+to the harmony of talking. Very careful, prudent, precise persons are
+seldom entertaining in familiar speech. They are like tennis players in
+too fine clothes. They think more of their costume than of the game.
+
+A mania for absolutely correct pronunciation is fatal. The people who
+are afflicted with this painful ailment are as anxious about their
+utterance as dyspeptics about their diet. They move through their
+sentences as delicately as Agag walked. Their little airs of nicety,
+their starched cadences and frilled phrases seem as if they had just
+been taken out of a literary bandbox. If perchance you happen to
+misplace an accent, you shall see their eyebrows curl up like an
+interrogation mark, and they will ask you what authority you have
+for that pronunciation. As if, forsooth, a man could not talk without
+book-license! As if he must have a permit from some dusty lexicon before
+he can take a good word into his mouth and speak it out like the people
+with whom he has lived!
+
+The truth is that the man who is very particular not to commit himself,
+in pronunciation or otherwise, and talks as if his remarks were being
+taken down in shorthand, and shudders at the thought of making a
+mistake, will hardly be able to open your heart or let out the best that
+is in his own.
+
+Reserve and precision are a great protection to overrated reputations;
+but they are death to talk.
+
+In talk it is not correctness of grammar nor elegance of enunciation
+that charms us; it is spirit, VERVE, the sudden turn of humour, the
+keen, pungent taste of life. For this reason a touch of dialect, a
+flavour of brogue, is delightful. Any dialect is classic that has
+conveyed beautiful thoughts. Who that ever talked with the poet
+Tennyson, when he let himself go, over the pipes, would miss the savour
+of his broad-rolling Lincolnshire vowels, now heightening the humour,
+now deepening the pathos, of his genuine manly speech? There are many
+good stories lingering in the memories of those who knew Dr. James
+McCosh, the late president of Princeton University,--stories too good, I
+fear, to get into a biography; but the best of them, in print, would not
+have the snap and vigour of the poorest of them, in talk, with his own
+inimitable Scotch-Irish brogue to set it forth.
+
+A brogue is not a fault. It is a beauty, an heirloom, a distinction. A
+local accent is like a landed inheritance; it marks a man's place in the
+world, tells where he comes from. Of course it is possible to have too
+much of it. A man does not need to carry the soil of his whole farm
+around with him on his boots. But, within limits, the accent of a native
+region is delightful. 'T is the flavour of heather in the grouse,
+the taste of wild herbs and evergreen-buds in the venison. I like the
+maple-sugar tang of the Vermonter's sharp-edged speech; the round,
+full-waisted r's of Pennsylvania and Ohio; the soft, indolent vowels
+of the South. One of the best talkers now living is a schoolmaster from
+Virginia, Colonel Gordon McCabe. I once crossed the ocean with him on
+a stream of stories that reached from Liverpool to New York. He did not
+talk in the least like a book. He talked like a Virginian.
+
+When Montaigne mentions GAYETY as the third clement of satisfying
+discourse, I fancy he does not mean mere fun, though that has its value
+at the right time and place. But there is another quality which is far
+more valuable and always fit. Indeed it underlies the best fun and makes
+it wholesome. It is cheerfulness, the temper which makes the best
+of things and squeezes the little drops of honey even out of
+thistle-blossoms. I think this is what Montaigne meant. Certainly it is
+what he had.
+
+Cheerfulness is the background of all good talk. A sense of humour is a
+means of grace. With it I have heard a pleasant soul make even that
+most perilous of all subjects, the description of a long illness,
+entertaining. The various physicians moved through the recital as
+excellent comedians, and the medicines appeared like a succession of
+timely jests.
+
+There is no occasion upon which this precious element of talkability
+comes out stronger than when we are on a journey. Travel with a
+cheerless and easily discouraged companion is an unadulterated
+misery. But a cheerful comrade is better than a waterproof coat and a
+foot-warmer.
+
+I remember riding once with my lady Graygown fifteen miles through a
+cold rainstorm, in an open buckboard, over the worst road in the world,
+from LAC A LA BELLE RIVIERE to the Metabetchouan River. Such was the
+cheerfulness of her ejaculations (the only possible form of talk)
+that we arrived at our destination as warm and merry as if we had been
+sitting beside a roaring camp-fire.
+
+
+But after all, the very best thing in good talk, and the thing that
+helps it most, is FRIENDSHIP. How it dissolves the barriers that divide
+us, and loosens all constraint, and diffuses itself like some fine old
+cordial through all the veins of life--this feeling that we understand
+and trust each other, and wish each other heartily well! Everything into
+which it really comes is good. It transforms letter-writing from a task
+into a pleasure. It makes music a thousand times more sweet. The people
+who play and sing not at us, but TO us,--how delightful it is to listen
+to them! Yes, there is a talkability that can express itself even
+without words. There is an exchange of thought and feeling which is
+happy alike in speech and in silence. It is quietness pervaded with
+friendship.
+
+
+Having come thus far in the exposition of Montaigne, I shall conclude
+with an opinion of my own, even though I cannot quote a sentence of his
+to back it.
+
+The one person of all the world in whom talkability is most desirable,
+and talkativeness least endurable, is a wife.
+
+
+
+
+A WILD STRAWBERRY
+
+
+     "Such is the story of the Boblink; once spiritual, musical,
+     admired, the joy of the meadows, and the favourite bird of
+     spring; finally a gross little sensualist who expiates his
+     sensuality in the larder. His story contains a moral, worthy
+     the attention of all little birds and little boys; warning
+     them to keep to those refined and intellectual pursuits
+     which raised him to so high a pitch of popularity during the
+     early part of his career; but to eschew all tendency to that
+     gross and dissipated indulgence, which brought this mistaken
+     little bird to an untimely end."
+
+     --WASHINGTON IRVING: Wolfert's Roost.
+
+
+The Swiftwater brook was laughing softly to itself as it ran through a
+strip of hemlock forest on the edge of the Woodlings' farm. Among the
+evergreen branches overhead the gayly-dressed warblers,--little friends
+of the forest,--were flitting to and fro, lisping their June songs of
+contented love: milder, slower, lazier notes than those in which
+they voiced the amourous raptures of May. Prince's Pine and golden
+loose-strife and pink laurel and blue hare-bells and purple-fringed
+orchids, and a score of lovely flowers were all abloom. The late spring
+had hindered some; the sudden heats of early summer had hastened others;
+and now they seemed to come out all together, as if Nature had suddenly
+tilted up her cornucopia and poured forth her treasures in spendthrift
+joy.
+
+I lay on a mossy bank at the foot of a tree, filling my pipe after a
+frugal lunch, and thinking how hard it would be to find in any quarter
+of the globe a place more fair and fragrant than this hidden vale among
+the Alleghany Mountains. The perfume of the flowers of the forest is
+more sweet and subtle than the heavy scent of tropical blossoms. No
+lily-field in Bermuda could give a fragrance half so magical as the
+fairy-like odour of these woodland slopes, soft carpeted with the green
+of glossy vines above whose tiny leaves, in delicate profusion,
+
+
+     "The slight Linnaea hangs its twin-born heads."
+
+
+Nor are there any birds in Africa, or among the Indian Isles, more
+exquisite in colour than these miniature warblers, showing their gold
+and green, their orange and black, their blue and white, against the
+dark background of the rhododendron thicket.
+
+But how seldom we put a cup of pleasure to our lips without a dash of
+bitters, a touch of faultfinding. My drop of discontent, that day, was
+the thought that the northern woodland, at least in June, yielded no
+fruit to match its beauty and its fragrance.
+
+There is good browsing among the leaves of the wood and the grasses of
+the meadow, as every well-instructed angler knows. The bright emerald
+tips that break from the hemlock and the balsam like verdant flames have
+a pleasant savour to the tongue. The leaves of the sassafras are full
+of spice, and the bark of the black-birch twigs holds a fine cordial.
+Crinkle-root is spicy, but you must partake of it delicately, or it will
+bite your tongue. Spearmint and peppermint never lose their charm for
+the palate that still remembers the delights of youth. Wild sorrel has
+an agreeable, sour, shivery flavour. Even the tender stalk of a young
+blade of grass is a thing that can be chewed by a person of childlike
+mind with much contentment.
+
+But, after all, these are only relishes. They whet the appetite more
+than they appease it. There should be something to eat, in the June
+woods, as perfect in its kind, as satisfying to the sense of taste, as
+the birds and the flowers are to the senses of sight and hearing and
+smell. Blueberries are good, but they are far away in July. Blackberries
+are luscious when they are fully ripe, but that will not be until
+August. Then the fishing will be over, and the angler's hour of need
+will be past. The one thing that is lacking now beside this mountain
+stream is some fruit more luscious and dainty than grows in the tropics,
+to melt upon the lips and fill the mouth with pleasure.
+
+But that is what these cold northern woods will not offer. They are too
+reserved, too lofty, too puritanical to make provision for the grosser
+wants of humanity. They are not friendly to luxury.
+
+Just then, as I shifted my head to find a softer pillow of moss after
+this philosophic and immoral reflection, Nature gave me her silent
+answer. Three wild strawberries, nodding on their long stems, hung over
+my face. It was an invitation to taste and see that they were good.
+
+The berries were not the round and rosy ones of the meadow, but the
+long, slender, dark crimson ones of the forest. One, two, three; no more
+on that vine; but each one as it touched my lips was a drop of nectar
+and a crumb of ambrosia, a concentrated essence of all the pungent
+sweetness of the wildwood, sapid, penetrating, and delicious. I tasted
+the odour of a hundred blossoms and the green shimmering of innumerable
+leaves and the sparkle of sifted sunbeams and the breath of highland
+breezes and the song of many birds and the murmur of flowing
+streams,--all in a wild strawberry.
+
+
+Do you remember, in THE COMPLEAT ANGLER, a remark which Isaak Walton
+quotes from a certain "Doctor Boteler" about strawberries? "Doubtless,"
+said that wise old man, "God could have made a better berry, but
+doubtless God never did."
+
+Well, the wild strawberry is the one that God made.
+
+I think it would have been pleasant to know a man who could sum up
+his reflections upon the important question of berries in such a pithy
+saying as that which Walton repeats. His tongue must have been in close
+communication with his heart. He must have had a fair sense of that
+sprightly humour without which piety itself is often insipid.
+
+I have often tried to find out more about him, and some day I hope I
+shall. But up to the present, all that the books have told me of this
+obscure sage is that his name was William Butler, and that he was an
+eminent physician, sometimes called "the Aesculapius of his age." He was
+born at Ipswich, in 1535, and educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge; in the
+neighbourhood of which town he appears to have spent the most of his
+life, in high repute as a practitioner of physic. He had the honour of
+doctoring King James the First after an accident on the hunting field,
+and must have proved himself a pleasant old fellow, for the king looked
+him up at Cambridge the next year, and spent an hour in his lodgings.
+This wise physician also invented a medicinal beverage called "Doctor
+Butler's Ale." I do not quite like the sound of it, but perhaps it was
+better than its name. This much is sure, at all events: either it was
+really a harmless drink, or else the doctor must have confined its use
+entirely to his patients; for he lived to the ripe age of eighty-three
+years.
+
+Between the time when William Butler first needed the services of a
+physician, in 1535, and the time when he last prescribed for a patient,
+in 1618, there was plenty of trouble in England. Bloody Queen Mary sat
+on the throne; and there were all kinds of quarrels about religion and
+politics; and Catholics and Protestants were killing one another in
+the name of God. After that the red-haired Elizabeth, called the Virgin
+Queen, wore the crown, and waged triumphant war and tempestuous love.
+Then fat James of Scotland was made king of Great Britain; and Guy
+Fawkes tried to blow him up with gunpowder, and failed; and the king
+tried to blow out all the pipes in England with his COUNTERBLAST AGAINST
+TOBACCO; but he failed too. Somewhere about that time, early in the
+seventeenth century, a very small event happened. A new berry was
+brought over from Virginia,--FRAGRARIA VIRGINIANA,--and then, amid wars
+and rumours of wars, Doctor Butler's happiness was secure. That new
+berry was so much richer and sweeter and more generous than the familiar
+FRAGRARIA VESCA of Europe, that it attracted the sincere interest of all
+persons of good taste. It inaugurated a new era in the history of the
+strawberry. The long lost masterpiece of Paradise was restored to its
+true place in the affections of man.
+
+Is there not a touch of merry contempt for all the vain controversies
+and conflicts of humanity in the grateful ejaculation with which the old
+doctor greeted that peaceful, comforting gift of Providence?
+
+"From this time forward," he seems to say, "the fates cannot beggar
+me, for I have eaten strawberries. With every Maytime that visits this
+distracted island, the white blossoms with hearts of gold will arrive.
+In every June the red drops of pleasant savour will hang among the
+scalloped leaves. The children of this world may wrangle and give one
+another wounds that even my good ale cannot cure. Nevertheless, the
+earth as God created it is a fair dwelling and full of comfort for all
+who have a quiet mind and a thankful heart. Doubtless God might have
+made a better world, but doubtless this is the world He made for us; and
+in it He planted the strawberry."
+
+Fine old doctor! Brave philosopher of cheerfulness! The Virginian berry
+should have been brought to England sooner, or you should have lived
+longer, at least to a hundred years, so that you might have welcomed a
+score of strawberry-seasons with gratitude and an epigram.
+
+Since that time a great change has passed over the fruit which Doctor
+Butler praised so well. That product of creative art which Divine wisdom
+did not choose to surpass, human industry has laboured to improve. It
+has grown immensely in size and substance. The traveller from America
+who steams into Queenstown harbour in early summer is presented (for a
+consideration) with a cabbage-leaf full of pale-hued berries, sweet and
+juicy, any one of which would outbulk a dozen of those that used to grow
+in Virginia when Pocahontas was smitten with the charms of Captain John
+Smith. They are superb, those light-tinted Irish strawberries. And there
+are wonderful new varieties developed in the gardens of New Jersey and
+Rhode Island, which compare with the ancient berries of the woods and
+meadows as Leviathan with a minnow. The huge crimson cushions hang among
+the plants so thick that they seem like bunches of fruit with a few
+leaves attached for ornament. You can satisfy your hunger in such a
+berry-patch in ten minutes, while out in the field you must pick for
+half an hour, and in the forest thrice as long, before you can fill a
+small tin cup.
+
+Yet, after all, it is questionable whether men have really bettered
+God's CHEF D'OEUVRE in the berry line. They have enlarged it and made
+it more plentiful and more certain in its harvest. But sweeter, more
+fragrant, more poignant in its flavour? No. The wild berry still stands
+first in its subtle gusto.
+
+Size is not the measure of excellence. Perfection lies in quality, not
+in quantity. Concentration enhances pleasure, gives it a point so that
+it goes deeper.
+
+Is not a ten-inch trout better than a ten-foot sturgeon? I would rather
+read a tiny essay by Charles Lamb than a five-hundred page libel on
+life by a modern British novelist who shall be nameless. Flavour is the
+priceless quality. Style is the thing that counts and is remembered, in
+literature, in art, and in berries.
+
+No JOCUNDA, nor TRIUMPH, nor VICTORIA, nor any other high-titled fruit
+that ever took the first prize at an agricultural fair, is half so
+delicate and satisfying as the wild strawberry that dropped into my
+mouth, under the hemlock tree, beside the Swiftwater.
+
+A touch of surprise is essential to perfect sweetness.
+
+To get what you have been wishing for is pleasant; but to get what
+you have not been sure of, makes the pleasure tingle. A new door of
+happiness is opened when you go out to hunt for something and discover
+it with your own eyes. But there is an experience even better than that.
+When you have stupidly forgotten (or despondently forgone) to look
+about you for the unclaimed treasures and unearned blessings which are
+scattered along the by-ways of life, then, sometimes by a special mercy,
+a small sample of them is quietly laid before you so that you cannot
+help seeing it, and it brings you back to a sense of the joyful
+possibilities of living.
+
+How full of enjoyment is the search after wild things,--wild birds, wild
+flowers, wild honey, wild berries! There was a country club on Storm
+King Mountain, above the Hudson River, where they used to celebrate a
+festival of flowers every spring. Men and women who had conservatories
+of their own, full of rare plants and costly orchids, came together
+to admire the gathered blossoms of the woodlands and meadows. But the
+people who had the best of the entertainment were the boys and girls who
+wandered through the thickets and down the brooks, pushed their way into
+the tangled copses and crept venturesomely across the swamps, to look
+for the flowers. Some of the seekers may have had a few gray hairs; but
+for that day at least they were all boys and girls. Nature was as young
+as ever, and they were all her children. Hand touched hand without a
+glove. The hidden blossoms of friendship unfolded. Laughter and merry
+shouts and snatches of half-forgotten song rose to the lips. Gay
+adventure sparkled in the air. School was out and nobody listened for
+the bell. It was just a day to live, and be natural, and take no thought
+for the morrow.
+
+There is great luck in this affair of looking for flowers. I do not see
+how any one who is prejudiced against games of chance can consistently
+undertake it.
+
+For my own part, I approve of garden flowers because they are so orderly
+and so certain; but wild flowers I love, just because there is so much
+chance about them. Nature is all in favour of certainty in great laws
+and of uncertainty in small events. You cannot appoint the day and the
+place for her flower-shows. If you happen to drop in at the right moment
+she will give you a free admission. But even then it seems as if the
+table of beauty had been spread for the joy of a higher visitor, and in
+obedience to secret orders which you have not heard.
+
+Have you ever found the fringed gentian?
+
+
+          "Just before the snows,
+     There came a purple creature
+      That lavished all the hill:
+     And summer hid her forehead,
+      And mockery was still.
+
+     The frosts were her condition:
+      The Tyrian would not come
+     Until the North evoked her,--
+      'Creator, shall I bloom?'"
+
+
+There are strange freaks of fortune in the finding of wild flowers,
+and curious coincidences which make us feel as if some one were playing
+friendly tricks on us. I remember reading, one evening in May, a passage
+in a good book called THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS, in which Colonel
+Higginson describes the singular luck that a friend of his enjoyed, year
+after year, in finding the rare blossoms of the double rueanemone. It
+seems that this man needed only to take a walk in the suburbs of any
+town, and he would come upon a bed of these flowers, without effort or
+design. I envied him his good fortune, for I had never discovered
+even one of them. But the next morning, as I strolled out to fish the
+Swiftwater, down below Billy Lerns's spring-house I found a green bank
+in the shadow of the wood all bespangled with tiny, trembling, twofold
+stars,--double rueanemones, for luck! It was a favourable omen, and that
+day I came home with a creel full of trout.
+
+The theory that Adam lived out in the woods for some time before he was
+put into the garden of Eden "to dress it and to keep it" has an air of
+probability. How else shall we account for the arboreal instincts that
+cling to his posterity?
+
+There is a wilding strain in our blood that all the civilization in the
+world will not eradicate. I never knew a real boy--or, for that matter,
+a girl worth knowing--who would not rather climb a tree, any day, than
+walk up a golden stairway.
+
+It is a touch of this instinct, I suppose, that makes it more delightful
+to fish in the most insignificant of free streams than in a carefully
+stocked and preserved pond, where the fish are brought up by hand and
+fed on minced liver. Such elaborate precautions to ensure good luck
+extract all the spice from the sport of angling. Casting the fly in such
+a pond, if you hooked a fish, you might expect to hear the keeper say,
+"Ah, that is Charles, we will play him and put him back, if you please,
+sir; for the master is very fond of him,"--or, "Now you have got hold of
+Edward; let us land him and keep him; he is three years old this month,
+and just ready to be eaten." It would seem like taking trout out of cold
+storage.
+
+Who could find any pleasure in angling for the tame carp in the
+fish-pool of Fontainebleau? They gather at the marble steps, those
+venerable, courtly fish, to receive their rations; and there are
+veterans among them, in ancient livery, with fringes of green moss on
+their shoulders, who could tell you pretty tales of being fed by the
+white hands of maids of honour, or even of nibbling their crumbs of
+bread from the jewelled fingers of a princess.
+
+There is no sport in bringing pets to the table. It may be necessary
+sometimes; but the true sportsman would always prefer to leave the
+unpleasant task of execution to menial hands, while he goes out into the
+wild country to capture his game by his own skill,--if he has good
+luck. I would rather run some risk in this enterprise (even as the young
+Tobias did, when the voracious pike sprang at him from the waters of the
+Tigris, and would have devoured him but for the friendly instruction
+of the piscatory Angel, who taught Tobias how to land the monster),--I
+would far rather take any number of chances in my sport than have it
+domesticated to the point of dulness.
+
+The trim plantations of trees which are called "forests" in certain
+parts of Europe--scientifically pruned and tended, counted every year by
+uniformed foresters, and defended against all possible depredations--are
+admirable and useful in their way; but they lack the mystic enchantment
+of the fragments of native woodland which linger among the Adirondacks
+and the White Mountains, or the vast, shaggy, sylvan wildernesses which
+hide the lakes and rivers of Canada. These Laurentian Hills lie in No
+Man's Land. Here you do not need to keep to the path, for there is none.
+You may make your own trail, whithersoever fancy leads you; and at night
+you may pitch your tent under any tree that looks friendly and firm.
+
+Here, if anywhere, you shall find Dryads, and Naiads, and Oreads. And
+if you chance to see one, by moonlight, combing her long hair beside
+the glimmering waterfall, or slipping silently, with gleaming shoulders,
+through the grove of silver birches, you may call her by the name that
+pleases you best. She is all your own discovery. There is no social
+directory in the wilderness.
+
+One side of our nature, no doubt, finds its satisfaction in the regular,
+the proper, the conventional. But there is another side of our
+nature, underneath, that takes delight in the strange, the free, the
+spontaneous. We like to discover what we call a law of Nature, and make
+our calculations about it, and harness the force which lies behind it
+for our own purposes. But we taste a different kind of joy when an
+event occurs which nobody has foreseen or counted upon. It seems like
+an evidence that there is something in the world which is alive and
+mysterious and untrammelled.
+
+The weather-prophet tells us of an approaching storm. It comes according
+to the programme. We admire the accuracy of the prediction, and
+congratulate ourselves that we have such a good meteorological service.
+But when, perchance, a bright, crystalline piece of weather arrives
+instead of the foretold tempest, do we not feel a secret sense of
+pleasure which goes beyond our mere comfort in the sunshine? The whole
+affair is not as easy as a sum in simple addition, after all,--at least
+not with our present knowledge. It is a good joke on the Weather Bureau.
+"Aha, Old Probabilities!" we say, "you don't know it all yet; there are
+still some chances to be taken!"
+
+Some day, I suppose, all things in the heavens above, and in the earth
+beneath, and in the hearts of the men and women who dwell between, will
+be investigated and explained. We shall live a perfectly ordered life,
+with no accidents, happy or unhappy. Everybody will act according to
+rule, and there will be no dotted lines on the map of human existence,
+no regions marked "unexplored." Perhaps that golden age of the machine
+will come, but you and I will hardly live to see it. And if that seems
+to you a matter for tears, you must do your own weeping, for I cannot
+find it in my heart to add a single drop of regret.
+
+The results of education and social discipline in humanity are fine. It
+is a good thing that we can count upon them. But at the same time let us
+rejoice in the play of native traits and individual vagaries. Cultivated
+manners are admirable, yet there is a sudden touch of inborn grace and
+courtesy that goes beyond them all. No array of accomplishments can
+rival the charm of an unsuspected gift of nature, brought suddenly to
+light. I once heard a peasant girl singing down the Traunthal, and the
+echo of her song outlives, in the hearing of my heart, all memories of
+the grand opera.
+
+The harvest of the gardens and the orchards, the result of prudent
+planting and patient cultivation, is full of satisfaction. We anticipate
+it in due season, and when it comes we fill our mouths and are grateful.
+But pray, kind Providence, let me slip over the fence out of the garden
+now and then, to shake a nut-tree that grows untended in the wood. Give
+me liberty to put off my black coat for a day, and go a-fishing on a
+free stream, and find by chance a wild strawberry.
+
+
+
+
+LOVERS AND LANDSCAPE
+
+
+"He insisted that the love that was of real value in the world was
+n't interesting, and that the love that was interesting was n't always
+admirable. Love that happened to a person like the measles or fits, and
+was really of no particular credit to itself or its victims, was the
+sort that got into the books and was made much of; whereas the kind that
+was attained by the endeavour of true souls, and that had wear in it,
+and that made things go right instead of tangling them up, was too much
+like duty to make satisfactory reading for people of sentiment."--E. S.
+MARTIN: My Cousin Anthony.
+
+
+The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is
+another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.
+
+The first day of spring is due to arrive, if the calendar does not break
+down, about the twenty-first of March, when the earth turns the corner
+of Sun Alley and starts for Summer Street. But the first spring day
+is not on the time-table at all. It comes when it is ready, and in the
+latitude of New York this is usually not till after All Fools' Day.
+
+About this time,--
+
+
+     "When chinks in April's windy dome
+      Let through a day of June,
+      And foot and thought incline to roam,
+      And every sound's a tune,"--
+
+
+it is the habit of the angler who lives in town to prepare for the
+labours of the approaching season by longer walks or bicycle-rides in
+the parks, or along the riverside, or in the somewhat demoralized
+Edens of the suburbs. In the course of these vernal peregrinations and
+circumrotations, I observe that lovers of various kinds begin to occupy
+a notable place in the landscape.
+
+The burnished dove puts a livelier iris around his neck, and practises
+fantastic bows and amourous quicksteps along the verandah of the
+pigeon-house and on every convenient roof. The young male of the human
+species, less gifted in the matter of rainbows, does his best with a
+gay cravat, and turns the thoughts which circulate above it towards the
+securing or propitiating of a best girl.
+
+The objects of these more or less brilliant attentions, doves and girls,
+show a becoming reciprocity, and act in a way which leads us to infer
+(so far as inferences hold good in the mysterious region of female
+conduct) that they are not seriously displeased. To a rightly tempered
+mind, pleasure is a pleasant sight. And the philosophic observer
+who could look upon this spring spectacle of the lovers with any but
+friendly feelings would be indeed what the great Dr. Samuel Johnson
+called "a person not to be envied."
+
+Far be it from me to fall into such a desiccated and supercilious mood.
+My small olive-branch of fancy will be withered, in truth, and ready to
+drop budless from the tree, when I cease to feel a mild delight in the
+billings and cooings of the little birds that separate from the
+flocks to fly together in pairs, or in the uninstructive but mutually
+satisfactory converse which Strephon holds with Chloe while they dally
+along the primrose path.
+
+I am glad that even the stony and tumultuous city affords some
+opportunities for these amiable observations. In the month of April
+there is hardly a clump of shrubbery in the Central Park which will not
+serve as a trysting-place for yellow warblers and catbirds just home
+from their southern tours. At the same time, you shall see many a bench,
+designed for the accommodation of six persons, occupied at the sunset
+hour by only two, and apparently so much too small for them that they
+cannot avoid a little crowding.
+
+These are infallible signs. Taken in conjunction with the eruption
+of tops and marbles among the small boys, and the purchase of
+fishing-tackle and golf-clubs by the old boys, they certify us that the
+vernal equinox has arrived, not only in the celestial regions, but also
+in the heart of man.
+
+
+I have been reflecting of late upon the relation of lovers to the
+landscape, and questioning whether art has given it quite the same place
+as that which belongs to it in nature. In fiction, for example, and in
+the drama, and in music, I have some vague misgivings that romantic love
+has come to hold a more prominent and a more permanent position than it
+fills in real life.
+
+This is dangerous ground to venture upon, even in the most modest and
+deprecatory way. The man who expresses an opinion, or even a doubt, on
+this subject, contrary to the ruling traditions, will have a swarm of
+angry critics buzzing about him. He will be called a heretic, a heathen,
+a cold-blooded freak of nature. As for the woman who hesitates to
+subscribe all the thirty-nine articles of romantic love, if such a one
+dares to put her reluctance into words, she is certain to be accused
+either of unwomanly ambition or of feminine disappointment.
+
+Let us make haste, then, to get back for safety to the ornithological
+aspect of the subject. Here there can be no penalties for heresy. And
+here I make bold to avow my conviction that the pairing season is not
+the only point of interest in the life of the birds; nor is the instinct
+by which they mate altogether and beyond comparison the noblest passion
+that stirs their feathered breasts.
+
+'T is true, the time of mating is their prettiest season; but it is very
+short. How little we should know of the drama of their airy life if we
+had eyes only for this brief scene! Their finest qualities come out
+in the patient cares that protect the young in the nest, in the varied
+struggles for existence through the changing year, and in the incredible
+heroisms of the annual migrations. Herein is a parable.
+
+It may be observed further, without fear of rebuke, that the behaviour
+of the different kinds of birds during the prevalence of romantic
+love is not always equally above reproach. The courtship of English
+sparrows--blustering, noisy, vulgar--is a sight to offend the taste
+of every gentle on-looker. Some birds reiterate and vociferate their
+love-songs in a fashion that displays their inconsiderateness as well as
+their ignorance of music. This trait is most marked in domestic fowls.
+There was a guinea-cock, once, that chose to do his wooing close under
+the window of a farm-house where I was lodged. He had no regard for
+my hours of sleep or meditation. His amatory click-clack prevented the
+morning and wrecked the tranquillity of the evening. It was odious,
+brutal,--worse, it was absolutely thoughtless. Herein is another
+parable.
+
+Let us admit cheerfully that lovers have a place in the landscape and
+lend a charm to it. This does not mean that they are to take up all
+the room there is. Suppose, for example, that a pair of them, on Goat
+Island, put themselves in such a position as to completely block out
+your view of Niagara. You cannot regard them with gratitude. They
+even become a little tedious. Or suppose that you are visiting at a
+country-house, and you find that you must not enjoy the moonlight on the
+verandah because Augustus and Amanda are murmuring in one corner, and
+that you must not go into the garden because Louis and Lizzie are there,
+and that you cannot have a sail on the lake because Richard and Rebecca
+have taken the boat.
+
+Of course, unless you happen to be a selfish old curmudgeon, you
+rejoice, by sympathy, in the happiness of these estimable young people.
+But you fail to see why it should cover so much ground.
+
+Why should they not pool their interests, and all go out in the boat, or
+all walk in the garden, or all sit on the verandah? Then there would be
+room for somebody else about the place.
+
+In old times you could rely upon lovers for retirement. But nowadays
+their role seems to be a bold ostentation of their condition. They rely
+upon other people to do the timid, shrinking part. Society, in America,
+is arranged principally for their convenience; and whatever portion of
+the landscape strikes their fancy, they preempt and occupy. All
+this goes upon the presumption that romantic love is really the only
+important interest in life.
+
+This train of thought was illuminated, the other night, by an incident
+which befell me at a party. It was an assembly of men, drawn together by
+their common devotion to the sport of canoeing. There were only three or
+four of the gentler sex present (as honorary members), and only one
+of whom it could be suspected that she was at that time a victim or an
+object of the tender passion. In the course of the evening, by way of
+diversion to our disputations on keels and centreboards, canvas and
+birch-bark, cedar-wood and bass-wood, paddles and steering-gear, a fine
+young Apollo, with a big, manly voice, sang us a few songs. But he did
+not chant the joys of weathering a sudden squall, or running a rapid
+feather-white with foam, or floating down a long, quiet, elm-bowered
+river. Not all. His songs were full of sighs and yearnings, languid lips
+and sheep's-eyes. His powerful voice informed us that crowns of thorns
+seemed like garlands of roses, and kisses were as sweet as samples of
+heaven, and various other curious sensations were experienced; and at
+the end of every stanza the reason was stated, in tones of thunder--
+
+
+     "Because I love you, dear."
+
+
+Even if true, it seemed inappropriate. How foolish the average
+audience in a drawing-room looks while it is listening to passionate
+love-ditties! And yet I suppose the singer chose these songs, not from
+any malice aforethought, but simply because songs of this kind are so
+abundant that it is next to impossible to find anything else in the
+shops.
+
+In regard to novels, the situation is almost as discouraging. Ten
+love-stories are printed to one of any other kind. We have a standing
+invitation to consider the tribulations and difficulties of some young
+man or young woman in finding a mate. It must be admitted that the
+subject has its capabilities of interest. Nature has her uses for the
+lover, and she gives him an excellent part to play in the drama of life.
+But is this tantamount to saying that his interest is perennial and
+all-absorbing, and that his role on the stage is the only one that is
+significant and noteworthy?
+
+Life is much too large to be expressed in the terms of a single passion.
+Friendship, patriotism, parental tenderness, filial devotion, the ardour
+of adventure, the thirst for knowledge, the ecstasy of religion,--these
+all have their dwelling in the heart of man. They mould character.
+They control conduct. They are stars of destiny shining in the inner
+firmament. And if art would truly hold the mirror up to nature, it must
+reflect these greater and lesser lights that rule the day and the night.
+
+How many of the plays that divert and misinform the modern theatre-goer
+turn on the pivot of a love-affair, not always pure, but generally
+simple! And how many of those that are imported from France proceed
+upon the theory that the Seventh is the only Commandment, and that the
+principal attraction of life lies in the opportunity of breaking it! The
+matinee-girl is not likely to have a very luminous or truthful idea of
+existence floating around in her pretty little head.
+
+But, after all, the great plays, those that take the deepest hold upon
+the heart, like HAMLET and KING LEAR, MACBETH and OTHELLO, are not
+love-plays. And the most charming comedies, like THE WINTER'S TALE, and
+THE RIVALS, and RIP VAN WINKLE, are chiefly memorable for other things
+than love-scenes.
+
+Even in novels, love shows at its best when it does not absorb the whole
+plot. LORNA DOONE is a lovers' story, but there is a blessed minimum of
+spooning in it, and always enough of working and fighting to keep the
+air clear and fresh. THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, and HYPATIA, and ROMOLA,
+and THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH, and JOHN INGLESANT, and THE THREE
+MUSKETEERS, and NOTRE DAME, and PEACE AND WAR, and QUO VADIS,--these are
+great novels because they are much more than tales of romantic love. As
+for HENRY ESMOND, (which seems to me the best of all,) certainly "love
+at first sight" does not play the finest role in that book.
+
+There are good stories of our own day--pathetic, humourous,
+entertaining, powerful--in which the element of romantic love is
+altogether subordinate, or even imperceptible. THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM
+does not owe its deep interest to the engagement of the very charming
+young people who enliven it. MADAME DELPHINE and OLE 'STRACTED are
+perfect stories of their kind. I would not barter THE JUNGLE BOOKS for a
+hundred of THE BRUSHWOOD BOY.
+
+The truth is that love, considered merely as the preference of one
+person for another of the opposite sex, is not "the greatest thing in
+the world." It becomes great only when it leads on, as it often does,
+to heroism and self-sacrifice and fidelity. Its chief value for art (the
+interpreter) lies not in itself, but in its quickening relation to the
+other elements of life. It must be seen and shown in its due proportion,
+and in harmony with the broader landscape.
+
+Do you believe that in all the world there is only one woman specially
+created for each man, and that the order of the universe will be
+hopelessly askew unless these two needles find each other in the
+haystack? You believe it for yourself, perhaps; but do you believe it
+for Tom Johnson? You remember what a terrific disturbance he made in the
+summer of 189-, at Bar Harbor, about Ellinor Brown, and how he ran away
+with her in September. You have also seen them together (occasionally)
+at Lenox and Newport, since their marriage. Are you honestly of the
+opinion that if Tom had not married Ellinor, these two young lives would
+have been a total wreck?
+
+Adam Smith, in his book on THE MORAL SENTIMENTS, goes so far as to say
+that "love is not interesting to the observer because it is AN AFFECTION
+OF THE IMAGINATION, into which it is difficult for a third party to
+enter." Something of the same kind occurred to me in regard to Tom and
+Ellinor. Yet I would not have presumed to suggest this thought to either
+of them. Nor would I have quoted in their hearing the melancholy and
+frigid prediction of Ralph Waldo Emerson, to the effect that they would
+some day discover "that all which at first drew them together--those
+once sacred features, that magical play of charm--was deciduous."
+
+DECIDUOUS, indeed? Cold, unpleasant, botanical word! Rather would I
+prognosticate for the lovers something perennial,
+
+
+     "A sober certainty of waking bliss,"
+
+
+to survive the evanescence of love's young dream. Ellinor should turn
+out to be a woman like the Lady Elizabeth Hastings, of whom Richard
+Steele wrote that "to love her was a liberal education." Tom should
+prove that he had in him the lasting stuff of a true man and a hero.
+Then it would make little difference whether their conjunction had been
+eternally prescribed in the book of fate or not. It would be evidently a
+fit match, made on earth and illustrative of heaven.
+
+But even in the making of such a match as this, the various stages of
+attraction, infatuation, and appropriation should not be displayed too
+prominently before the world, nor treated as events of overwhelming
+importance and enduring moment. I would not counsel Tom and Ellinor,
+in the midsummer of their engagement, to have their photographs taken
+together in affectionate attitudes.
+
+The pictures of an imaginary kind which deal with the subject of
+romantic love are, almost without exception, fatuous and futile. The
+inanely amatory, with their languishing eyes, weary us. The endlessly
+osculatory, with their protracted salutations, are sickening. Even when
+an air of sentimental propriety is thrown about them by some such title
+as "Wedded" or "The Honeymoon," they fatigue us. For the most part, they
+remind me of the remark which the Commodore made upon a certain painting
+of Jupiter and lo which hangs in the writing-room of the Contrary Club.
+
+"Sir," said that gently piercing critic, "that picture is equally
+unsatisfactory to the artist, to the moralist, and to the voluptuary."
+
+
+Nevertheless, having made a clean breast of my misgivings and
+reservations on the subject of lovers and landscape, I will now confess
+that the whole of my doubts do not weigh much against my unreasoned
+faith in romantic love. At heart I am no infidel, but a most obstinate
+believer and devotee. My seasons of skepticism are transient. They
+are connected with a torpid liver and aggravated by confinement to a
+sedentary life and enforced abstinence from angling. Out-of-doors, I
+return to a saner and happier frame of mind.
+
+As my wheel rolls along the Riverside Drive in the golden glow of the
+sunset, I rejoice that the episode of Charles Henry and Matilda Jane has
+not been omitted from the view. This vast and populous city, with all
+its passing show of life, would be little better than a waste, howling
+wilderness if we could not catch a glimpse, now and then, of young
+people falling in love in the good old-fashioned way. Even on a
+trout-stream, I have seen nothing prettier than the sight upon which I
+once came suddenly as I was fishing down the Neversink.
+
+A boy was kneeling beside the brook, and a girl was giving him a drink
+of water out of her rosy hands. They stared with wonder and compassion
+at the wet and solitary angler, wading down the stream, as if he were
+some kind of a mild lunatic. But as I glanced discreetly at their
+small tableau, I was not unconscious of the new joy that came into the
+landscape with the presence of
+
+
+     "A lover and his lass."
+
+
+I knew how sweet the water tasted from that kind of a cup. I also have
+lived in Arcadia, and have not forgotten the way back.
+
+
+
+
+A FATAL SUCCESS
+
+
+     "What surprises me in her behaviour," said he, "is its
+     thoroughness. Woman seldom does things by halves, but often
+     by doubles."
+
+     --SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ: The Life of Adam.
+
+
+Beekman De Peyster was probably the most passionate and triumphant
+fisherman in the Petrine Club. He angled with the same dash and
+confidence that he threw into his operations in the stock-market. He was
+sure to be the first man to get his flies on the water at the opening of
+the season. And when we came together for our fall meeting, to compare
+notes of our wanderings on various streams and make up the fish-stories
+for the year, Beekman was almost always "high hook." We expected, as
+a matter of course, to hear that he had taken the most and the largest
+fish.
+
+It was so with everything that he undertook. He was a masterful man.
+If there was an unusually large trout in a river, Beekman knew about it
+before any one else, and got there first, and came home with the fish.
+It did not make him unduly proud, because there was nothing uncommon
+about it. It was his habit to succeed, and all the rest of us were
+hardened to it.
+
+When he married Cornelia Cochrane, we were consoled for our partial loss
+by the apparent fitness and brilliancy of the match. If Beekman was a
+masterful man, Cornelia was certainly what you might call a mistressful
+woman. She had been the head of her house since she was eighteen years
+old. She carried her good looks like the family plate; and when she came
+into the breakfast-room and said good-morning, it was with an air as if
+she presented every one with a check for a thousand dollars. Her tastes
+were accepted as judgments, and her preferences had the force of laws.
+Wherever she wanted to go in the summer-time, there the finger of
+household destiny pointed. At Newport, at Bar Harbour, at Lenox, at
+Southampton, she made a record. When she was joined in holy wedlock to
+Beekman De Peyster, her father and mother heaved a sigh of satisfaction,
+and settled down for a quiet vacation in Cherry Valley.
+
+It was in the second summer after the wedding that Beekman admitted to
+a few of his ancient Petrine cronies, in moments of confidence
+(unjustifiable, but natural), that his wife had one fault.
+
+"It is not exactly a fault," he said, "not a positive fault, you know.
+It is just a kind of a defect, due to her education, of course. In
+everything else she's magnificent. But she does n't care for
+fishing. She says it's stupid,--can't see why any one should like the
+woods,--calls camping out the lunatic's diversion. It's rather awkward
+for a man with my habits to have his wife take such a view. But it can
+be changed by training. I intend to educate her and convert her. I shall
+make an angler of her yet."
+
+And so he did.
+
+The new education was begun in the Adirondacks, and the first lesson was
+given at Paul Smith's. It was a complete failure.
+
+Beekman persuaded her to come out with him for a day on Meacham River,
+and promised to convince her of the charm of angling. She wore a new
+gown, fawn-colour and violet, with a picture-hat, very taking. But the
+Meacham River trout was shy that day; not even Beekman could induce him
+to rise to the fly. What the trout lacked in confidence the mosquitoes
+more than made up. Mrs. De Peyster came home much sunburned, and
+expressed a highly unfavourable opinion of fishing as an amusement and
+of Meacham River as a resort.
+
+"The nice people don't come to the Adirondacks to fish," said she; "they
+come to talk about the fishing twenty years ago. Besides, what do you
+want to catch that trout for? If you do, the other men will say you
+bought it, and the hotel will have to put in a new one for the rest of
+the season."
+
+The following year Beekman tried Moosehead Lake. Here he found an
+atmosphere more favourable to his plan of education. There were a good
+many people who really fished, and short expeditions in the woods were
+quite fashionable. Cornelia had a camping-costume of the most approved
+style made by Dewlap on Fifth Avenue,--pearl-gray with linings of
+rose-silk,--and consented to go with her husband on a trip up Moose
+River. They pitched their tent the first evening at the mouth of Misery
+Stream, and a storm came on. The rain sifted through the canvas in a
+fine spray, and Mrs. De Peyster sat up all night in a waterproof cloak,
+holding an umbrella. The next day they were back at the hotel in time
+for lunch.
+
+"It was horrid," she told her most intimate friend, "perfectly horrid.
+The idea of sleeping in a shower-bath, and eating your breakfast from a
+tin plate, just for sake of catching a few silly fish! Why not send your
+guides out to get them for you?"
+
+But, in spite of this profession of obstinate heresy, Beekman observed
+with secret joy that there were signs, before the end of the
+season, that Cornelia was drifting a little, a very little but still
+perceptibly, in the direction of a change of heart. She began to take
+an interest, as the big trout came along in September, in the reports
+of the catches made by the different anglers. She would saunter out with
+the other people to the corner of the porch to see the fish weighed
+and spread out on the grass. Several times she went with Beekman in the
+canoe to Hardscrabble Point, and showed distinct evidences of pleasure
+when he caught large trout. The last day of the season, when he returned
+from a successful expedition to Roach River and Lily Bay, she inquired
+with some particularity about the results of his sport; and in the
+evening, as the company sat before the great open fire in the hall of
+the hotel, she was heard to use this information with considerable skill
+in putting down Mrs. Minot Peabody of Boston, who was recounting the
+details of her husband's catch at Spencer Pond. Cornelia was not a
+person to be contented with the back seat, even in fish-stories.
+
+When Beekman observed these indications he was much encouraged, and
+resolved to push his educational experiment briskly forward to his
+customary goal of success.
+
+"Some things can be done, as well as others," he said in his masterful
+way, as three of us were walking home together after the autumnal dinner
+of the Petrine Club, which he always attended as a graduate member. "A
+real fisherman never gives up. I told you I'd make an angler out of
+my wife; and so I will. It has been rather difficult. She is 'dour'
+in rising. But she's beginning to take notice of the fly now. Give me
+another season, and I'll have her landed."
+
+Good old Beekman! Little did he think--But I must not interrupt the
+story with moral reflections.
+
+The preparations that he made for his final effort at conversion were
+thorough and prudent. He had a private interview with Dewlap in regard
+to the construction of a practical fishing-costume for a lady, which
+resulted in something more reasonable and workmanlike than had ever been
+turned out by that famous artist. He ordered from Hook and Catchett a
+lady's angling-outfit of the most enticing description,--a split-bamboo
+rod, light as a girl's wish, and strong as a matron's will; an oxidized
+silver reel, with a monogram on one side, and a sapphire set in the
+handle for good luck; a book of flies, of all sizes and colours, with
+the correct names inscribed in gilt letters on each page. He surrounded
+his favourite sport with an aureole of elegance and beauty. And then he
+took Cornelia in September to the Upper Dam at Rangeley.
+
+She went reluctant. She arrived disgusted. She stayed incredulous. She
+returned--Wait a bit, and you shall hear how she returned.
+
+The Upper Dam at Rangeley is the place, of all others in the world,
+where the lunacy of angling may be seen in its incurable stage. There is
+a cosy little inn, called a camp, at the foot of a big lake. In front of
+the inn is a huge dam of gray stone, over which the river plunges into
+a great oval pool, where the trout assemble in the early fall to
+perpetuate their race. From the tenth of September to the thirtieth,
+there is not an hour of the day or night when there are no boats
+floating on that pool, and no anglers trailing the fly across its
+waters. Before the late fishermen are ready to come in at midnight, the
+early fishermen may be seen creeping down to the shore with lanterns
+in order to begin before cock-crow. The number of fish taken is
+not large,--perhaps five or six for the whole company on an average
+day,--but the size is sometimes enormous,--nothing under three pounds is
+counted,--and they pervade thought and conversation at the Upper Dam to
+the exclusion of every other subject. There is no driving, no dancing,
+no golf, no tennis. There is nothing to do but fish or die.
+
+At first, Cornelia thought she would choose the latter alternative.
+But a remark of that skilful and morose old angler, McTurk, which she
+overheard on the verandah after supper, changed her mind.
+
+"Women have no sporting instinct," said he. "They only fish because they
+see men doing it. They are imitative animals."
+
+That same night she told Beekman, in the subdued tone which the
+architectural construction of the house imposes upon all confidential
+communications in the bedrooms, but with resolution in every accent,
+that she proposed to go fishing with him on the morrow.
+
+"But not on that pool, right in front of the house, you understand.
+There must be some other place, out on the lake, where we can fish for
+three or four days, until I get the trick of this wobbly rod. Then I'll
+show that old bear, McTurk, what kind of an animal woman is."
+
+Beekman was simply delighted. Five days of diligent practice at the
+mouth of Mill Brook brought his pupil to the point where he pronounced
+her safe.
+
+"Of course," he said patronizingly, "you have 'nt learned all about it
+yet. That will take years. But you can get your fly out thirty feet, and
+you can keep the tip of your rod up. If you do that, the trout will hook
+himself, in rapid water, eight times out of ten. For playing him, if
+you follow my directions, you 'll be all right. We will try the pool
+tonight, and hope for a medium-sized fish."
+
+Cornelia said nothing, but smiled and nodded. She had her own thoughts.
+
+At about nine o'clock Saturday night, they anchored their boat on the
+edge of the shoal where the big eddy swings around, put out the lantern
+and began to fish. Beekman sat in the bow of the boat, with his rod over
+the left side; Cornelia in the stern, with her rod over the right side.
+The night was cloudy and very black. Each of them had put on the largest
+possible fly, one a "Bee-Pond" and the other a "Dragon;" but even these
+were invisible. They measured out the right length of line, and let
+the flies drift back until they hung over the shoal, in the curly water
+where the two currents meet.
+
+There were three other boats to the left of them. McTurk was their only
+neighbour in the darkness on the right. Once they heard him swearing
+softly to himself, and knew that he had hooked and lost a fish.
+
+Away down at the tail of the pool, dimly visible through the gloom, the
+furtive fisherman, Parsons, had anchored his boat. No noise ever came
+from that craft. If he wished to change his position, he did not pull
+up the anchor and let it down again with a bump. He simply lengthened or
+shortened his anchor rope. There was no click of the reel when he played
+a fish. He drew in and paid out the line through the rings by hand,
+without a sound. What he thought when a fish got away, no one knew,
+for he never said it. He concealed his angling as if it had been a
+conspiracy. Twice that night they heard a faint splash in the water
+near his boat, and twice they saw him put his arm over the side in the
+darkness and bring it back again very quietly.
+
+"That's the second fish for Parsons," whispered Beekman, "what a
+secretive old Fortunatus he is! He knows more about fishing than any man
+on the pool, and talks less."
+
+Cornelia did not answer. Her thoughts were all on the tip of her own
+rod. About eleven o'clock a fine, drizzling rain set in. The fishing was
+very slack. All the other boats gave it up in despair; but Cornelia said
+she wanted to stay out a little longer, they might as well finish up the
+week.
+
+At precisely fifty minutes past eleven, Beekman reeled up his line, and
+remarked with firmness that the holy Sabbath day was almost at hand and
+they ought to go in.
+
+"Not till I 've landed this trout," said Cornelia.
+
+"What? A trout! Have you got one?"
+
+"Certainly; I 've had him on for at least fifteen minutes. I 'm playing
+him Mr. Parsons' way. You might as well light the lantern and get the
+net ready; he's coming in towards the boat now."
+
+Beekman broke three matches before he made the lantern burn; and when he
+held it up over the gunwale, there was the trout sure enough, gleaming
+ghostly pale in the dark water, close to the boat, and quite tired out.
+He slipped the net over the fish and drew it in,--a monster.
+
+"I 'll carry that trout, if you please," said Cornelia, as they stepped
+out of the boat; and she walked into the camp, on the last stroke
+of midnight, with the fish in her hand, and quietly asked for the
+steelyard.
+
+Eight pounds and fourteen ounces,--that was the weight. Everybody was
+amazed. It was the "best fish" of the year. Cornelia showed no sign of
+exultation, until just as John was carrying the trout to the ice-house.
+Then she flashed out:--"Quite a fair imitation, Mr. McTurk,--is n't it?"
+
+Now McTurk's best record for the last fifteen years was seven pounds and
+twelve ounces.
+
+So far as McTurk is concerned, this is the end of the story. But not for
+the De Peysters. I wish it were. Beekman went to sleep that night with
+a contented spirit. He felt that his experiment in education had been a
+success. He had made his wife an angler.
+
+He had indeed, and to an extent which he little suspected. That Upper
+Dam trout was to her like the first taste of blood to the tiger. It
+seemed to change, at once, not so much her character as the direction
+of her vital energy. She yielded to the lunacy of angling, not by slow
+degrees, (as first a transient delusion, then a fixed idea, then a
+chronic infirmity, finally a mild insanity,) but by a sudden plunge into
+the most violent mania. So far from being ready to die at Upper Dam,
+her desire now was to live there--and to live solely for the sake of
+fishing--as long as the season was open.
+
+There were two hundred and forty hours left to midnight on the thirtieth
+of September. At least two hundred of these she spent on the pool; and
+when Beekman was too exhausted to manage the boat and the net and the
+lantern for her, she engaged a trustworthy guide to take Beekman's place
+while he slept. At the end of the last day her score was twenty-three,
+with an average of five pounds and a quarter. His score was nine, with
+an average of four pounds. He had succeeded far beyond his wildest
+hopes.
+
+The next year his success became even more astonishing. They went to the
+Titan Club in Canada. The ugliest and most inaccessible sheet of
+water in that territory is Lake Pharaoh. But it is famous for the
+extraordinary fishing at a certain spot near the outlet, where there
+is just room enough for one canoe. They camped on Lake Pharaoh for six
+weeks, by Mrs. De Peyster's command; and her canoe was always the first
+to reach the fishing-ground in the morning, and the last to leave it in
+the evening.
+
+Some one asked him, when he returned to the city, whether he had good
+luck.
+
+"Quite fair," he tossed off in a careless way; "we took over three
+hundred pounds."
+
+"To your own rod?" asked the inquirer, in admiration.
+
+"No-o-o," said Beekman, "there were two of us."
+
+There were two of them, also, the following year, when they joined the
+Natasheebo Salmon Club and fished that celebrated river in Labrador. The
+custom of drawing lots every night for the water that each member was
+to angle over the next day, seemed to be especially designed to fit the
+situation. Mrs. De Peyster could fish her own pool and her husband's
+too. The result of that year's fishing was something phenomenal. She had
+a score that made a paragraph in the newspapers and called out editorial
+comment. One editor was so inadequate to the situation as to entitle the
+article in which he described her triumph "The Equivalence of Woman." It
+was well-meant, but she was not at all pleased with it.
+
+She was now not merely an angler, but a "record" angler of the most
+virulent type. Wherever they went, she wanted, and she got, the pick
+of the water. She seemed to be equally at home on all kinds of streams,
+large and small. She would pursue the little mountain-brook trout in
+the early spring, and the Labrador salmon in July, and the huge speckled
+trout of the northern lakes in September, with the same avidity and
+resolution. All that she cared for was to get the best and the most of
+the fishing at each place where she angled. This she always did.
+
+And Beekman,--well, for him there were no more long separations from
+the partner of his life while he went off to fish some favourite stream.
+There were no more home-comings after a good day's sport to find her
+clad in cool and dainty raiment on the verandah, ready to welcome him
+with friendly badinage. There was not even any casting of the fly around
+Hardscrabble Point while she sat in the canoe reading a novel, looking
+up with mild and pleasant interest when he caught a larger fish than
+usual, as an older and wiser person looks at a child playing some
+innocent game. Those days of a divided interest between man and wife
+were gone. She was now fully converted, and more. Beekman and Cornelia
+were one; and she was the one.
+
+The last time I saw the De Peysters he was following her along the
+Beaverkill, carrying a landing-net and a basket, but no rod. She paused
+for a moment to exchange greetings, and then strode on down the stream.
+He lingered for a few minutes longer to light a pipe.
+
+"Well, old man," I said, "you certainly have succeeded in making an
+angler of Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"Yes, indeed," he answered,--"have n't I?" Then he continued, after a
+few thoughtful puffs of smoke, "Do you know, I 'm not quite so sure as I
+used to be that fishing is the best of all sports. I sometimes think of
+giving it up and going in for croquet."
+
+
+
+FISHING IN BOOKS
+
+
+     "SIMPSON.--Have you ever seen any American books on angling,
+     Fisher?"
+
+     "FISHER.--No, I do not think there are any published.
+     Brother Jonathan is not yet sufficiently civilized to
+     produce anything original on the gentle art.  There is good
+     trout-fishing in America, and the streams, which are all
+     free, are much less fished than in our Island, 'from the
+     small number of gentlemen,' as an American writer says, 'who
+     are at leisure to give their time to it.'"
+
+     --WILLIAM ANDREW CHATTO: The Angler's Souvenir (London,
+     1835).
+
+
+That wise man and accomplished scholar, Sir Henry Wotton, the friend of
+Izaak Walton and ambassador of King James I to the republic of Venice,
+was accustomed to say that "he would rather live five May months than
+forty Decembers." The reason for this preference was no secret to those
+who knew him. It had nothing to do with British or Venetian politics. It
+was simply because December, with all its domestic joys, is practically
+a dead month in the angler's calendar.
+
+His occupation is gone. The better sort of fish are out of season. The
+trout are lean and haggard: it is no trick to catch them and no treat to
+eat them. The salmon, all except the silly kelts, have run out to sea,
+and the place of their habitation no man knoweth. There is nothing
+for the angler to do but wait for the return of spring, and meanwhile
+encourage and sustain his patience with such small consolations in kind
+as a friendly Providence may put within his reach.
+
+
+Some solace may be found, on a day of crisp, wintry weather, in the
+childish diversion of catching pickerel through the ice. This method of
+taking fish is practised on a large scale and with elaborate machinery
+by men who supply the market. I speak not of their commercial enterprise
+and its gross equipage, but of ice-fishing in its more sportive and
+desultory form, as it is pursued by country boys and the incorrigible
+village idler.
+
+You choose for this pastime a pond where the ice is not too thick, lest
+the labour of cutting through should be discouraging; nor too thin, lest
+the chance of breaking in should be embarrassing. You then chop out,
+with almost any kind of a hatchet or pick, a number of holes in the ice,
+making each one six or eight inches in diameter, and placing them about
+five or six feet apart. If you happen to know the course of a current
+flowing through the pond, or the location of a shoal frequented by
+minnows, you will do well to keep near it. Over each hole you set a
+small contrivance called a "tilt-up." It consists of two sticks fastened
+in the middle, at right angles to each other. The stronger of the two is
+laid across the opening in the ice. The other is thus balanced above
+the aperture, with a baited hook and line attached to one end, while the
+other end is adorned with a little flag. For choice, I would have the
+flags red. They look gayer, and I imagine they are more lucky.
+
+When you have thus baited and set your tilt-ups,--twenty or thirty of
+them,--you may put on your skates and amuse yourself by gliding to
+and fro on the smooth surface of the ice, cutting figures of eight and
+grapevines and diamond twists, while you wait for the pickerel to begin
+their part of the performance. They will let you know when they are
+ready.
+
+A fish, swimming around in the dim depths under the ice, sees one of
+your baits, fancies it, and takes it in. The moment he tries to run away
+with it he tilts the little red flag into the air and waves it backward
+and forward. "Be quick!" he signals all unconsciously; "here I am; come
+and pull me up!"
+
+When two or three flags are fluttering at the same moment, far apart on
+the pond, you must skate with speed and haul in your lines promptly.
+
+How hard it is, sometimes, to decide which one you will take first! That
+flag in the middle of the pond has been waving for at least a minute;
+but the other, in the corner of the bay, is tilting up and down more
+violently: it must be a larger fish. Great Dagon! There's another red
+signal flying, away over by the point! You hesitate, you make a few
+strokes in one direction, then you whirl around and dart the other way.
+Meantime one of the tilt-ups, constructed with too short a cross-stick,
+has been pulled to one side, and disappears in the hole. One pickerel in
+the pond carries a flag. Another tilt-up ceases to move and falls flat
+upon the ice. The bait has been stolen. You dash desperately toward
+the third flag and pull in the only fish that is left,--probably the
+smallest of them all!
+
+A surplus of opportunities does not insure the best luck.
+
+A room with seven doors--like the famous apartment in Washington's
+headquarters at Newburgh--is an invitation to bewilderment. I would
+rather see one fair opening in life than be confused by three dazzling
+chances.
+
+There was a good story about fishing through the ice which formed part
+of the stock-in-conversation of that ingenious woodsman, Martin Moody,
+Esquire, of Big Tupper Lake. "'T was a blame cold day," he said, "and
+the lines friz up stiffer 'n a fence-wire, jus' as fast as I pulled 'em
+in, and my fingers got so dum' frosted I could n't bait the hooks. But
+the fish was thicker and hungrier 'n flies in June. So I jus' took
+a piece of bait and held it over one o' the holes. Every time a fish
+jumped up to git it, I 'd kick him out on the ice. I tell ye, sir, I
+kicked out more 'n four hundred pounds of pick'rel that morning. Yaas,
+'t was a big lot, I 'low, but then 't was a cold day! I jus' stacked 'em
+up solid, like cordwood."
+
+Let us now leave this frigid subject! Iced fishing is but a chilling and
+unsatisfactory imitation of real sport. The angler will soon turn from
+it with satiety, and seek a better consolation for the winter of his
+discontent in the entertainment of fishing in books.
+
+
+Angling is the only sport that boasts the honour of having given a
+classic to literature.
+
+Izaak Walton's success with THE COMPLEAT ANGLER was a fine illustration
+of fisherman's luck. He set out, with some aid from an adept in
+fly-fishing and cookery, named Thomas Barker, to produce a little
+"discourse of fish and fishing" which should serve as a useful manual
+for quiet persons inclined to follow the contemplative man's recreation.
+He came home with a book which has made his name beloved by ten
+generations of gentle readers, and given him a secure place in the
+Pantheon of letters,--not a haughty eminence, but a modest niche, all
+his own, and ever adorned with grateful offerings of fresh flowers.
+
+This was great luck. But it was well-deserved, and therefore it has not
+been grudged or envied.
+
+Walton was a man so peaceful and contented, so friendly in his
+disposition, and so innocent in all his goings, that only three other
+writers, so far as I know, have ever spoken ill of him.
+
+One was that sour-complexioned Cromwellian trooper, Richard Franck, who
+wrote in 1658 an envious book entitled NORTHERN MEMOIRS, CALCULATED FOR
+THE MERIDIAN OF SCOTLAND, ETC., TO WHICH IS ADDED THE CONTEMPLATIVE AND
+PRACTICAL ANGLER. In this book the furious Franck first pays Walton the
+flattery of imitation, and then further adorns him with abuse, calling
+THE COMPLEAT ANGLER "an indigested octavo, stuffed with morals from
+Dubravius and others," and more than hinting that the father of anglers
+knew little or nothing of "his uncultivated art." Walton was a Churchman
+and a Loyalist, you see, while Franck was a Commonwealth man and an
+Independent.
+
+The second detractor of Walton was Lord Byron, who wrote
+
+
+     "The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb in his gullet
+      Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it."
+
+
+But Byron is certainly a poor authority on the quality of mercy. His
+contempt need not cause an honest man overwhelming distress. I should
+call it a complimentary dislike.
+
+The third author who expressed unpleasant sentiments in regard to
+Walton was Leigh Hunt. Here, again, I fancy that partizan prejudice had
+something to do with the dislike. Hunt was a radical in politics and
+religion. Moreover there was a feline strain in his character, which
+made it necessary for him to scratch somebody now and then, as a relief
+to his feelings.
+
+Walton was a great quoter. His book is not "stuffed," as Franck
+jealously alleged, but it is certainly well sauced with piquant
+references to other writers, as early as the author of the Book of Job,
+and as late as John Dennys, who betrayed to the world THE SECRETS OF
+ANGLING in 1613. Walton further seasoned his book with fragments of
+information about fish and fishing, more or less apocryphal, gathered
+from Aelian, Pliny, Plutarch, Sir Francis Bacon, Dubravius, Gesner,
+Rondeletius, the learned Aldrovandus, the venerable Bede, the divine
+Du Bartas, and many others. He borrowed freely for the adornment of
+his discourse, and did not scorn to make use of what may be called
+LIVE QUOTATIONS,--that is to say, the unpublished remarks of his near
+contemporaries, caught in friendly conversation, or handed down by oral
+tradition.
+
+But these various seasonings did not disguise, they only enhanced, the
+delicate flavour of the dish which he served up to his readers. This was
+all of his own taking, and of a sweetness quite incomparable.
+
+I like a writer who is original enough to water his garden with
+quotations, without fear of being drowned out. Such men are Charles Lamb
+and James Russell Lowell and John Burroughs.
+
+Walton's book is as fresh as a handful of wild violets and sweet
+lavender. It breathes the odours of the green fields and the woods. It
+tastes of simple, homely, appetizing things like the "syllabub of new
+verjuice in a new-made haycock" which the milkwoman promised to give
+Piscator the next time he came that way. Its music plays the tune of A
+CONTENTED HEART over and over again without dulness, and charms us into
+harmony with
+
+
+     "A noise like the sound of a hidden brook
+      In the leafy month of June,
+      That to the sleeping woods all night
+      Singeth a quiet tune."
+
+
+Walton has been quoted even more than any of the writers whom he quotes.
+It would be difficult, even if it were not ungrateful, to write
+about angling without referring to him. Some pretty saying, some wise
+reflection from his pages, suggests itself at almost every turn of the
+subject.
+
+And yet his book, though it be the best, is not the only readable one
+that his favourite recreation has begotten. The literature of angling
+is extensive, as any one may see who will look at the list of the
+collection presented by Mr. John Bartlett to Harvard University, or
+study the catalogue of the piscatorial library of Mr. Dean Sage,
+of Albany, who himself has contributed an admirable book on THE
+RISTIGOUCHE.
+
+Nor is this literature altogether composed of dry and technical
+treatises, interesting only to the confirmed anglimaniac, or to the
+young novice ardent in pursuit of practical information. There is a good
+deal of juicy reading in it.
+
+
+Books about angling should be divided (according to De Quincey's method)
+into two classes,--the literature of knowledge, and the literature of
+power.
+
+The first class contains the handbooks on rods and tackle, the
+directions how to angle for different kinds of fish, and the guides to
+various fishing-resorts. The weakness of these books is that they soon
+fall out of date, as the manufacture of tackle is improved, the art
+of angling refined, and the fish in once-famous waters are educated or
+exterminated.
+
+Alas, how transient is the fashion of this world, even in angling! The
+old manuals with their precise instruction for trimming and painting
+trout-rods eighteen feet long, and their painful description of
+"oyntments" made of nettle-juice, fish-hawk oil, camphor, cat's fat, or
+assafoedita, (supposed to allure the fish,) are altogether behind the
+age. Many of the flies described by Charles Cotton and Thomas Barker
+seem to have gone out of style among the trout. Perhaps familiarity has
+bred contempt. Generation after generation of fish have seen these same
+old feathered confections floating on the water, and learned by sharp
+experience that they do not taste good. The blase trout demand something
+new, something modern. It is for this reason, I suppose, that an
+altogether original fly, unheard of, startling, will often do great
+execution in an over-fished pool.
+
+Certain it is that the art of angling, in settled regions, is growing
+more dainty and difficult. You must cast a longer, lighter line; you
+must use finer leaders; you must have your flies dressed on smaller
+hooks.
+
+And another thing is certain: in many places (described in the
+ancient volumes) where fish were once abundant, they are now like the
+shipwrecked sailors in Vergil his Aeneid,--
+
+
+     "rari nantes in gurgite vasto."
+
+
+The floods themselves are also disappearing. Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman
+was telling me, the other day, of the trout-brook that used to run
+through the Connecticut village when he nourished a poet's youth.
+He went back to visit the stream a few years since, and it was gone,
+literally vanished from the face of earth, stolen to make a watersupply
+for the town, and used for such base purposes as the washing of clothes
+and the sprinkling of streets.
+
+I remember an expedition with my father, some twenty years ago, to Nova
+Scotia, whither we set out to realize the hopes kindled by an ANGLER'S
+GUIDE written in the early sixties. It was like looking for tall clocks
+in the farmhouses around Boston. The harvest had been well gleaned
+before our arrival, and in the very place where our visionary author
+located his most famous catch we found a summer hotel and a sawmill.
+
+'T is strange and sad, how many regions there are where "the fishing was
+wonderful forty years ago"!
+
+
+The second class of angling books--the literature of power--includes
+all (even those written with some purpose of instruction) in which
+the gentle fascinations of the sport, the attractions of living
+out-of-doors, the beauties of stream and woodland, the recollections of
+happy adventure, and the cheerful thoughts that make the best of a day's
+luck, come clearly before the author's mind and find some fit expression
+in his words. Of such books, thank Heaven, there is a plenty to bring a
+Maytide charm and cheer into the fisherman's dull December. I will name,
+by way of random tribute from a grateful but unmethodical memory, a few
+of these consolatory volumes.
+
+First of all comes a family of books that were born in Scotland and
+smell of the heather.
+
+Whatever a Scotchman's conscience permits him to do, is likely to be
+done with vigour and a fiery mind. In trade and in theology, in fishing
+and in fighting, he is all there and thoroughly kindled.
+
+There is an old-fashioned book called THE MOOR AND THE LOCH, by John
+Colquhoun, which is full of contagious enthusiasm. Thomas Tod Stoddart
+was a most impassioned angler, (though over-given to strong language,)
+and in his ANGLING REMINISCENCES he has touched the subject with a happy
+hand,--happiest when he breaks into poetry and tosses out a song for the
+fisherman. Professor John Wilson of the University of Edinburgh held the
+chair of Moral Philosophy in that institution, but his true fame rests
+on his well-earned titles of A. M. and F. R. S.,--Master of Angling,
+and Fisherman Royal of Scotland. His RECREATIONS OF CHRISTOPHER NORTH,
+albeit their humour is sometimes too boisterously hammered in, are
+genial and generous essays, overflowing with passages of good-fellowship
+and pedestrian fancy. I would recommend any person in a dry and
+melancholy state of mind to read his paper on "Streams," in the first
+volume of ESSAYS CRITICAL AND IMAGINATIVE. But it must be said, by way
+of warning to those with whom dryness is a matter of principle, that all
+Scotch fishing-books are likely to be sprinkled with Highland Dew.
+
+Among English anglers, Sir Humphry Davy is one of whom Christopher
+North speaks rather slightingly. Nevertheless his SALMONIA is well worth
+reading, not only because it was written by a learned man, but because
+it exhales the spirit of cheerful piety and vital wisdom. Charles
+Kingsley was another great man who wrote well about angling. His
+CHALK-STREAM STUDIES are clear and sparkling. They cleanse the mind
+and refresh the heart and put us more in love with living. Of quite a
+different style are the MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR AN ANGLER, AND MISERIES OF
+FISHING, which were written by Richard Penn, a grandson of the founder
+of Pennsylvania. This is a curious and rare little volume, professing
+to be a compilation from the "Common Place Book of the Houghton Fishing
+Club," and dealing with the subject from a Pickwickian point of view.
+I suppose that William Penn would have thought his grandson a frivolous
+writer.
+
+But he could not have entertained such an opinion of the Honourable
+Robert Boyle, of whose OCCASIONAL REFLECTIONS no less than twelve
+discourses treat "of Angling Improved to Spiritual Uses." The titles
+of some of these discourses are quaint enough to quote. "Upon the being
+called upon to rise early on a very fair morning." "Upon the mounting,
+singing, and lighting of larks." "Upon fishing with a counterfeit fly."
+"Upon a danger arising from an unseasonable contest with the steersman."
+"Upon one's drinking water out of the brim of his hat." With such good
+texts it is easy to endure, and easier still to spare, the sermons.
+
+Englishmen carry their love of travel into their anglimania, and many of
+their books describe fishing adventures in foreign parts. RAMBLES WITH
+A FISHING-ROD, by E. S. Roscoe, tells of happy days in the Salzkammergut
+and the Bavarian Highlands and Normandy. FISH-TAILS AND A FEW OTHERS, by
+Bradnock Hall, contains some delightful chapters on Norway. THE ROD IN
+INDIA, by H. S. Thomas, narrates wonderful adventures with the Mahseer
+and the Rohu and other pagan fish.
+
+But, after all, I like the English angler best when he travels at home,
+and writes of dry-fly fishing in the Itchen or the Test, or of wet-fly
+fishing in Northumberland or Sutherlandshire. There is a fascinating
+booklet that appeared quietly, some years ago, called AN AMATEUR
+ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE DALE. It runs as easily and merrily and kindly
+as a little river, full of peace and pure enjoyment. Other books of the
+same quality have since been written by the same pen,--DAYS IN CLOVER,
+FRESH WOODS, BY MEADOW AND STREAM. It is no secret, I believe, that
+the author is Mr. Edward Marston, the senior member of a London
+publishing-house. But he still clings to his retiring pen-name of "The
+Amateur Angler," and represents himself, by a graceful fiction, as all
+unskilled in the art. An instance of similar modesty is found in Mr.
+Andrew Lang, who entitles the first chapter of his delightful
+ANGLING SKETCHES (without which no fisherman's library is complete),
+"Confessions of a Duffer." This an engaging liberty which no one else
+would dare to take.
+
+The best English fish-story pure and simple, that I know, is "Crocker's
+Hole," by H. D. Black-more, the creator of LORNA DOONE.
+
+Let us turn now to American books about angling. Of these the merciful
+dispensations of Providence have brought forth no small store since Mr.
+William Andrew Chatto made the ill-natured remark which is pilloried at
+the head of this chapter. By the way, it seems that Mr. Chatto had never
+heard of "The Schuylkill Fishing Company," which was founded on that
+romantic stream near Philadelphia in 1732, nor seen the AUTHENTIC
+HISTORICAL MEMOIR of that celebrated and amusing society.
+
+I am sorry for the man who cannot find pleasure in reading the appendix
+of THE AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK, by Thaddeus Norris; or the discursive
+pages of Frank Forester's FISH AND FISHING; or the introduction and
+notes of that unexcelled edition of Walton which was made by the
+Reverend Doctor George W. Bethune; or SUPERIOR FISHING and GAME FISH OF
+THE NORTH, by Mr. Robert B. Roosevelt; or Henshall's BOOK OF THE BLACK
+BASS; or the admirable disgressions of Mr. Henry P. Wells, in his
+FLY-RODS AND FLY-TACKLE, and THE AMERICAN SALMON ANGLER. Dr. William C.
+Prime has never put his profound knowledge of the art of angling into a
+manual of technical instruction; but he has written of the delights of
+the sport in OWL CREEK LETTERS, and in I GO A-FISHING, and in some of
+the chapters of ALONG NEW ENGLAND ROADS and AMONG NEW ENGLAND HILLS,
+with a persuasive skill that has created many new anglers, and made
+many old ones grateful. It is a fitting coincidence of heredity that his
+niece, Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson, is the author of the most tender and
+pathetic of all angling stories, FISHIN' JIMMY.
+
+
+But it is not only in books written altogether from his peculiar point
+of view and to humour his harmless insanity, that the angler may find
+pleasant reading about his favourite pastime. There are excellent bits
+of fishing scattered all through the field of good literature. It seems
+as if almost all the men who could write well had a friendly feeling for
+the contemplative sport.
+
+Plutarch, in THE LIVES OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS AND ROMANS, tells a capital
+fish-story of the manner in which the Egyptian Cleopatra fooled that
+far-famed Roman wight, Marc Antony, when they were angling together on
+the Nile. As I recall it, from a perusal in early boyhood, Antony was
+having very bad luck indeed; in fact he had taken nothing, and was sadly
+put out about it. Cleopatra, thinking to get a rise out of him, secretly
+told one of her attendants to dive over the opposite side of the barge
+and fasten a salt fish to the Roman general's hook. The attendant was
+much pleased with this commission, and, having executed it, proceeded to
+add a fine stroke of his own; for when he had made the fish fast on the
+hook, he gave a great pull to the line and held on tightly. Antony was
+much excited and began to haul violently at his tackle.
+
+"By Jupiter!" he exclaimed, "it was long in coming, but I have a
+colossal bite now."
+
+"Have a care," said Cleopatra, laughing behind her sunshade, "or he will
+drag you into the water. You must give him line when he pulls hard."
+
+"Not a denarius will I give!" rudely responded Antony. "I mean to have
+this halibut or Hades!"
+
+At this moment the man under the boat, being out of breath, let the line
+go, and Antony, falling backward, drew up the salted herring.
+
+"Take that fish off the hook, Palinurus," he proudly said. "It is not
+as large as I thought, but it looks like the oldest one that has been
+caught to-day."
+
+Such, in effect, is the tale narrated by the veracious Plutarch. And
+if any careful critic wishes to verify my quotation from memory, he may
+compare it with the proper page of Langhorne's translation; I think it
+is in the second volume, near the end.
+
+Sir Walter Scott, who once described himself as
+
+
+     "No fisher,
+      But a well-wisher
+      To the game,"
+
+
+has an amusing passage of angling in the third chapter of REDGAUNTLET.
+Darsie Latimer is relating his adventures in Dumfriesshire. "By the
+way," says he, "old Cotton's instructions, by which I hoped to qualify
+myself for the gentle society of anglers, are not worth a farthing for
+this meridian. I learned this by mere accident, after I had waited four
+mortal hours. I shall never forget an impudent urchin, a cowherd, about
+twelve years old, without either brogue or bonnet, barelegged, with a
+very indifferent pair of breeches,--how the villain grinned in scorn at
+my landing-net, my plummet, and the gorgeous jury of flies which I had
+assembled to destroy all the fish in the river. I was induced at last to
+lend the rod to the sneering scoundrel, to see what he would make of it;
+and he not only half-filled my basket in an hour, but literally taught
+me to kill two trouts with my own hand."
+
+Thus ancient and well-authenticated is the superstition of the angling
+powers of the barefooted country-boy,--in fiction.
+
+Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, in that valuable but over-capitalized book,
+MY NOVEL, makes use of Fishing for Allegorical Purposes. The episode of
+John Burley and the One-eyed Perch not only points a Moral but adorns
+the Tale.
+
+In the works of R. D. Blackmore, angling plays a less instructive but a
+pleasanter part. It is closely interwoven with love. There is a magical
+description of trout-fishing on a meadow-brook in ALICE LORRAINE. And
+who that has read LORNA DOONE, (pity for the man or woman that knows not
+the delight of that book!) can ever forget how young John Ridd dared
+his way up the gliddery water-slide, after loaches, and found Lorna in a
+fair green meadow adorned with flowers, at the top of the brook?
+
+I made a little journey into the Doone Country once, just to see that
+brook and to fish in it. The stream looked smaller, and the water-slide
+less terrible, than they seemed in the book. But it was a mighty pretty
+place after all; and I suppose that even John Ridd, when he came back to
+it in after years, found it shrunken a little.
+
+All the streams were larger in our boyhood than they are now, except,
+perhaps, that which flows from the sweetest spring of all, the fountain
+of love, which John Ridd discovered beside the Bagworthy River,--and I,
+on the willow-shaded banks of the Patapsco, where the Baltimore girls
+fish for gudgeons,--and you? Come, gentle reader, is there no stream
+whose name is musical to you, because of a hidden spring of love that
+you once found on its shore? The waters of that fountain never fail, and
+in them alone we taste the undiminished fulness of immortal youth.
+
+The stories of William Black are enlivened with fish, and he knew,
+better than most men, how they should be taken. Whenever he wanted to
+get two young people engaged to each other, all other devices failing,
+he sent them out to angle together. If it had not been for fishing,
+everything in A PRINCESS OF THULE and WHITE HEATHER would have gone
+wrong.
+
+But even men who have been disappointed in love may angle for solace or
+diversion. I have known some old bachelors who fished excellently well;
+and others I have known who could find, and give, much pleasure in a day
+on the stream, though they had no skill in the sport. Of this class was
+Washington Irving, with an extract from whose SKETCH BOOK I will bring
+this rambling dissertation to an end.
+
+"Our first essay," says he, "was along a mountain brook among the
+highlands of the Hudson; a most unfortunate place for the execution of
+those piscatory tactics which had been invented along the velvet margins
+of quiet English rivulets. It was one of those wild streams that lavish,
+among our romantic solitudes, unheeded beauties enough to fill the
+sketch-book of a hunter of the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap down
+rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which the trees threw their
+broad balancing sprays, and long nameless weeds hung in fringes from the
+impending banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it would brawl
+and fret along a ravine in the matted shade of a forest, filling it with
+murmurs; and, after this termagant career, would steal forth into open
+day, with the most placid, demure face imaginable; as I have seen some
+pestilent shrew of a housewife, after filling her home with uproar and
+ill-humour, come dimpling out of doors, swimming and courtesying, and
+smiling upon all the world.
+
+"How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide, at such times, through
+some bosom of green meadow-land among the mountains, where the quiet
+was only interrupted by the occasional tinkling of a bell from the lazy
+cattle among the clover, or the sound of a woodcutter's axe from the
+neighbouring forest!
+
+"For my part, I was always a bungler at all kinds of sport that required
+either patience or adroitness, and had not angled above half an hour
+before I had completely 'satisfied the sentiment,' and convinced myself
+of the truth of Izaak Walton's opinion, that angling is something like
+poetry,--a man must be born to it. I hooked myself instead of the fish;
+tangled my line in every tree; lost my bait; broke my rod; until I gave
+up the attempt in despair, and passed the day under the trees, reading
+old Izaak, satisfied that it was his fascinating vein of honest
+simplicity and rural feeling that had bewitched me, and not the passion
+for angling."
+
+
+
+
+A NORWEGIAN HONEYMOON
+
+
+     "The best rose-bush, after all, is not that which has the
+     fewest thorns, but that which bears the finest roses."
+
+     --SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ: The Life of Adam.
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was not all unadulterated sweetness, of course. There were enough
+difficulties in the way to make it seem desirable; and a few stings
+of annoyance, now and then, lent piquancy to the adventure. But a good
+memory, in dealing with the past, has the art of straining out all the
+beeswax of discomfort, and storing up little jars of pure hydromel. As
+we look back at our six weeks in Norway, we agree that no period of our
+partnership in experimental honeymooning has yielded more honey to the
+same amount of comb.
+
+Several considerations led us to the resolve of taking our honeymoon
+experimentally rather than chronologically. We started from the
+self-evident proposition that it ought to be the happiest time in
+married life.
+
+"It is perfectly ridiculous," said my lady Graygown, "to suppose that
+a thing like that can be fixed by the calendar. It may possibly fall in
+the first month after the wedding, but it is not likely. Just think how
+slightly two people know each other when they get married. They are
+in love, of course, but that is not at all the same as being well
+acquainted. Sometimes the more love, the less acquaintance! And
+sometimes the more acquaintance, the less love! Besides, at first there
+are always the notes of thanks for the wedding-presents to be written,
+and the letters of congratulation to be answered, and it is awfully hard
+to make each one sound a little different from the others and perfectly
+natural. Then, you know, everybody seems to suspect you of the folly of
+being newly married. You run across your friends everywhere, and they
+grin when they see you. You can't help feeling as if a lot of people
+were watching you through opera-glasses, or taking snap-shots at you
+with a kodak. It is absurd to imagine that the first month must be the
+real honeymoon. And just suppose it were,--what bad luck that would be!
+What would there be to look forward to?"
+
+Every word that fell from her lips seemed to me like the wisdom of
+Diotima.
+
+"You are right," I cried; "Portia could not hold a candle to you for
+clear argument. Besides, suppose two people are imprudent enough to get
+married in the first week of December, as we did!--what becomes of the
+chronological honeymoon then? There is no fishing in December, and all
+the rivers of Paradise, at least in our latitude, are frozen up. No, my
+lady, we will discover our month of honey by the empirical method. Each
+year we will set out together to seek it in a solitude for two; and we
+will compare notes on moons, and strike the final balance when we are
+sure that our happiest experiment has been completed."
+
+We are not sure of that, even yet. We are still engaged, as a committee
+of two, in our philosophical investigation, and we decline to make
+anything but a report of progress. We know more now than we did when we
+first went honeymooning in the city of Washington. For one thing, we are
+certain that not even the far-famed rosemary-fields of Narbonne, or
+the fragrant hillsides of the Corbieres, yield a sweeter harvest to the
+busy-ness of the bees than the Norwegian meadows and mountain-slopes
+yielded to our idleness in the summer of 1888.
+
+
+II
+
+
+The rural landscape of Norway, on the long easterly slope that leads up
+to the watershed among the mountains of the western coast, is not unlike
+that of Vermont or New Hampshire. The railway from Christiania to the
+Randsfjord carried us through a hilly country of scattered farms and
+villages. Wood played a prominent part in the scenery. There were dark
+stretches of forest on the hilltops and in the valleys; rivers filled
+with floating logs; sawmills beside the waterfalls; wooden farmhouses
+painted white; and rail-fences around the fields. The people seemed
+sturdy, prosperous, independent. They had the familiar habit of coming
+down to the station to see the train arrive and depart. We might have
+fancied ourselves on a journey through the Connecticut valley, if it had
+not been for the soft sing-song of the Norwegian speech and the uniform
+politeness of the railway officials.
+
+What a room that was in the inn at Randsfjord where we spent our first
+night out! Vast, bare, primitive, with eight windows to admit the
+persistent nocturnal twilight; a sea-like floor of blue-painted boards,
+unbroken by a single island of carpet; and a castellated stove in one
+corner: an apartment for giants, with two little beds for dwarfs on
+opposite shores of the ocean. There was no telephone; so we arranged
+a system of communication with a fishing-line, to make sure that
+the sleepy partner should be awake in time for the early boat in the
+morning.
+
+The journey up the lake took seven hours, and reminded us of a voyage
+on Lake George; placid, picturesque, and pervaded by summer boarders.
+Somewhere on the way we had lunch, and were well fortified to take the
+road when the steamboat landed us at Odnaes, at the head of the lake,
+about two o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+There are several methods in which you may drive through Norway. The
+government maintains posting-stations at the farms along the main
+travelled highways, where you can hire horses and carriages of various
+kinds. There are also English tourist agencies which make a business of
+providing travellers with complete transportation. You may try either of
+these methods alone, or you may make a judicious mixture.
+
+Thus, by an application of the theory of permutations and combinations,
+you have your choice among four ways of accomplishing a driving-tour.
+First, you may engage a carriage and pair, with a driver, from one of
+the tourist agencies, and roll through your journey in sedentary case,
+provided your horses do not go lame or give out. Second, you may rely
+altogether upon the posting-stations to send you on your journey; and
+this is a very pleasant, lively way, provided there is not a crowd
+of travellers on the road before you, who take up all the comfortable
+conveyances and leave you nothing but a jolting cart or a ramshackle
+KARIOL of the time of St. Olaf. Third, you may rent an easy-riding
+vehicle (by choice a well-hung gig) for the entire trip, and change
+ponies at the stations as you drive along; this is the safest way. The
+fourth method is to hire your horseflesh at the beginning for the whole
+journey, and pick up your vehicles from place to place. This method is
+theoretically possible, but I do not know any one who has tried it.
+
+Our gig was waiting for us at Odnaes. There was a brisk little
+mouse-coloured pony in the shafts; and it took but a moment to strap our
+leather portmanteau on the board at the back, perch the postboy on top
+of it, and set out for our first experience of a Norwegian driving-tour.
+
+The road at first was level and easy; and we bowled along smoothly
+through the valley of the Etnaelv, among drooping birch-trees and green
+fields where the larks were singing. At Tomlevolden, ten miles farther
+on, we reached the first station, a comfortable old farmhouse, with a
+great array of wooden outbuildings. Here we had a chance to try our
+luck with the Norwegian language in demanding "en hest, saa straxt som
+muligt." This was what the guide-book told us to say when we wanted a
+horse.
+
+There is great fun in making a random cast on the surface of a strange
+language. You cannot tell what will come up. It is like an experiment in
+witchcraft. We should not have been at all surprised, I must confess, if
+our preliminary incantation had brought forth a cow or a basket of eggs.
+
+But the good people seemed to divine our intentions; and while we were
+waiting for one of the stable-boys to catch and harness the new horse, a
+yellow-haired maiden inquired, in very fair English, if we would not be
+pleased to have a cup of tea and some butter-bread; which we did with
+great comfort.
+
+The SKYDSGUT, or so-called postboy, for the next stage of the journey,
+was a full-grown man of considerable weight. As he climbed to his perch
+on our portmanteau, my lady Graygown congratulated me on the prudence
+which had provided that one side of that receptacle should be of an
+inflexible stiffness, quite incapable of being crushed; otherwise, asked
+she, what would have become of her Sunday frock under the pressure of
+this stern necessity of a postboy?
+
+But I think we should not have cared very much if all our luggage had
+been smashed on this journey, for the road now began to ascend, and the
+views over the Etnadal, with its winding river, were of a breadth and
+sweetness most consoling. Up and up we went, curving in and out through
+the forest, crossing wild ravines and shadowy dells, looking back at
+every turn on the wide landscape bathed in golden light. At the station
+of Sveen, where we changed horse and postboy again, it was already
+evening. The sun was down, but the mystical radiance of the northern
+twilight illumined the sky. The dark fir-woods spread around us, and
+their odourous breath was diffused through the cool, still air. We were
+crossing the level summit of the plateau, twenty-three hundred feet
+above the sea. Two tiny woodland lakes gleamed out among the trees. Then
+the road began to slope gently towards the west, and emerged suddenly
+on the edge of the forest, looking out over the long, lovely vale of
+Valders, with snow-touched mountains on the horizon, and the river
+Baegna shimmering along its bed, a thousand feet below us.
+
+What a heart-enlarging outlook! What a keen joy of motion, as the wheels
+rolled down the long incline, and the sure-footed pony swung between the
+shafts and rattled his hoofs merrily on the hard road! What long,
+deep breaths of silent pleasure in the crisp night air! What wondrous
+mingling of lights in the afterglow of sunset, and the primrose bloom
+of the first stars, and faint foregleamings of the rising moon creeping
+over the hill behind us! What perfection of companionship without words,
+as we rode together through a strange land, along the edge of the dark!
+
+When we finished the thirty-fifth mile, and drew up in the courtyard of
+the station at Frydenlund, Graygown sprang out, with a little sigh of
+regret.
+
+"Is it last night," she cried, "or to-morrow morning? I have n't the
+least idea what time it is; it seems as if we had been travelling in
+eternity."
+
+"It is just ten o'clock," I answered, "and the landlord says there will
+be a hot supper of trout ready for us in five minutes."
+
+It would be vain to attempt to give a daily record of the whole
+journey in which we made this fair beginning. It was a most idle and
+unsystematic pilgrimage. We wandered up and down, and turned aside when
+fancy beckoned. Sometimes we hurried on as fast as the horses would
+carry us, driving sixty or seventy miles a day; sometimes we loitered
+and dawdled, as if we did not care whether we got anywhere or not. If a
+place pleased us, we stayed and tried the fishing. If we were tired of
+driving, we took to the water, and travelled by steamer along a fjord,
+or hired a rowboat to cross from point to point. One day we would be in
+a good little hotel, with polyglot guests, and serving-maids in stagey
+Norse costumes,--like the famous inn at Stalheim, which commands the
+amazing panorama of the Naerodal. Another day we would lodge in a plain
+farmhouse like the station at Nedre Vasenden, where eggs and fish were
+the staples of diet, and the farmer's daughter wore the picturesque
+peasants' dress, with its tall cap, without any dramatic airs. Lakes
+and rivers, precipices and gorges, waterfalls and glaciers and snowy
+mountains were our daily repast. We drove over five hundred miles in
+various kinds of open wagons, KARIOLS for one, and STOLKJAERRES for
+two, after we had left our comfortable gig behind us. We saw the ancient
+dragon-gabled church of Burgund; and the delightful, showery town of
+Bergen; and the gloomy cliffs of the Geiranger-Fjord laced with filmy
+cataracts; and the bewitched crags of the Romsdal; and the wide,
+desolate landscape of Jerkin; and a hundred other unforgotten scenes.
+Somehow or other we went, (around and about, and up and down, now
+on wheels, and now on foot, and now in a boat,) all the way from
+Christiania to Throndhjem. My lady Graygown could give you the exact
+itinerary, for she has been well brought up, and always keeps a diary.
+All I know is, that we set out from one city and arrived at the other,
+and we gathered by the way a collection of instantaneous photographs.
+I am going to turn them over now, and pick out a few of the clearest
+pictures.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Here is the bridge over the Naeselv at Fagernaes. Just below it is a
+good pool for trout, but the river is broad and deep and swift. It is
+difficult wading to get out within reach of the fish. I have taken half
+a dozen small ones and come to the end of my cast. There is a big one
+lying out in the middle of the river, I am sure. But the water already
+rises to my hips; another step will bring it over the top of my waders,
+and send me downstream feet uppermost.
+
+"Take care!" cries Graygown from the grassy bank, where she sits
+placidly crocheting some mysterious fabric of white yarn.
+
+She does not see the large rock lying at the bottom of the river just
+beyond me. If I can step on that, and stand there without being swept
+away, I can reach the mid-current with my flies. It is a long stride
+and a slippery foothold, but by good luck "the last step which costs" is
+accomplished. The tiny black and orange hackle goes curling out over the
+stream, lights softly, and swings around with the current, folding
+and expanding its feathers as if it were alive. The big trout takes
+it promptly the instant it passes over him; and I play him and net him
+without moving from my perilous perch.
+
+Graygown waves her crochet-work like a flag, "Bravo!" she cries. "That's
+a beauty, nearly two pounds! But do be careful about coming back; you
+are not good enough to take any risks yet."
+
+
+The station at Skogstad is a solitary farmhouse lying far up on the
+bare hillside, with its barns and out-buildings grouped around a central
+courtyard, like a rude fortress. The river travels along the valley
+below, now wrestling its way through a narrow passage among the rocks,
+now spreading out at leisure in a green meadow. As we cross the bridge,
+the crystal water is changed to opal by the sunset glow, and a gentle
+breeze ruffles the long pools, and the trout are rising freely. It is
+the perfect hour for fishing. Would Graygown dare to drive on alone to
+the gate of the fortress, and blow upon the long horn which doubtless
+hangs beside it, and demand admittance and a lodging, "in the name of
+the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress,"--while I angle down the
+river a mile or so?
+
+Certainly she would. What door is there in Europe at which the American
+girl is afraid to knock? "But wait a moment. How do you ask for fried
+chicken and pancakes in Norwegian? KYLLING OG PANDEKAGE? How fierce it
+sounds! All right now. Run along and fish."
+
+The river welcomes me like an old friend. The tune that it sings is the
+same that the flowing water repeats all around the world. Not otherwise
+do the lively rapids carry the familiar air, and the larger falls drone
+out a burly bass, along the west branch of the Penobscot, or down the
+valley of the Bouquet. But here there are no forests to conceal the
+course of the stream. It lies as free to the view as a child's thought.
+As I follow on from pool to pool, picking out a good trout here and
+there, now from a rocky corner edged with foam, now from a swift
+gravelly run, now from a snug hiding-place that the current has hollowed
+out beneath the bank, all the way I can see the fortress far above me on
+the hillside.
+
+I am as sure that it has already surrendered to Graygown as if I could
+discern her white banner of crochet-work floating from the battlements.
+
+Just before dark, I climb the hill with a heavy basket of fish. The
+castle gate is open. The scent of chicken and pancakes salutes the weary
+pilgrim. In a cosy little parlour, adorned with fluffy mats and pictures
+framed in pine-cones, lit by a hanging lamp with glass pendants,
+sits the mistress of the occasion, calmly triumphant and plying her
+crochet-needle.
+
+There is something mysterious about a woman's fancy-work. It seems
+to have all the soothing charm of the tobacco-plant, without its
+inconveniences. Just to see her tranquillity, while she relaxes her mind
+and busies her fingers with a bit of tatting or embroidery or crochet,
+gives me a sense of being domesticated, a "homey" feeling, anywhere in
+the wide world.
+
+
+If you ever go to Norway, you must be sure to see the Loenvand. You can
+set out from the comfortable hotel at Faleide, go up the Indvik Fjord
+in a rowboat, cross over a two-mile hill on foot or by carriage, spend a
+happy day on the lake, and return to your inn in time for a late supper.
+The lake is perhaps the most beautiful in Norway. Long and narrow, it
+lies like a priceless emerald of palest green, hidden and guarded by
+jealous mountains. It is fed by huge glaciers, which hang over the
+shoulders of the hills like ragged cloaks of ice.
+
+As we row along the shore, trolling in vain for the trout that live in
+the ice-cold water, fragments of the tattered cloth-of-silver far above
+us, on the opposite side, are loosened by the touch of the summer
+sun, and fall from the precipice. They drift downward, at first,
+as noiselessly as thistledowns; then they strike the rocks and come
+crashing towards the lake with the hollow roar of an avalanche.
+
+At the head of the lake we find ourselves in an enormous amphitheatre
+of mountains. Glaciers are peering down upon us. Snow-fields glare at us
+with glistening eyes. Black crags seem to bend above us with an eternal
+frown. Streamers of foam float from the forehead of the hills and the
+lips of the dark ravines. But there is a little river of cold, pure
+water flowing from one of the rivers of ice, and a pleasant shelter of
+young trees and bushes growing among the debris of shattered rocks; and
+there we build our camp-fire and eat our lunch.
+
+Hunger is a most impudent appetite. It makes a man forget all the
+proprieties. What place is there so lofty, so awful, that he will not
+dare to sit down in it and partake of food? Even on the side of Mount
+Sinai, the elders of Israel spread their out-of-door table, "and did eat
+and drink."
+
+
+I see the Tarn of the Elk at this moment, just as it looked in the clear
+sunlight of that August afternoon, ten years ago. Far down in a hollow
+of the desolate hills it nestles, four thousand feet above the sea. The
+moorland trail hangs high above it, and, though it is a mile away, every
+curve of the treeless shore, every shoal and reef in the light green
+water is clearly visible. With a powerful field-glass one can almost see
+the large trout for which the pond is famous.
+
+The shelter-hut on the bank is built of rough gray stones, and the roof
+is leaky to the light as well as to the weather. But there are two beds
+in it, one for my guide and one for me; and a practicable fireplace,
+which is soon filled with a blaze of comfort. There is also a random
+library of novels, which former fishermen have thoughtfully left behind
+them. I like strong reading in the wilderness. Give me a story with
+plenty of danger and wholesome fighting in it,--"The Three Musketeers,"
+or "Treasure Island," or "The Afghan's Knife." Intricate studies of
+social dilemmas and tales of mild philandering seem bloodless and
+insipid.
+
+The trout in the Tarn of the Elk are large, undoubtedly, but they are
+also few in number and shy in disposition. Either some of the peasants
+have been fishing over them with the deadly "otter," or else they
+belong to that variety of the trout family known as TRUTTA DAMNOSA,--the
+species which you can see but cannot take. We watched these aggravating
+fish playing on the surface at sunset; we saw them dart beneath our boat
+in the early morning; but not until a driving snowstorm set in, about
+noon of the second day, did we succeed in persuading any of them to take
+the fly. Then they rose, for a couple of hours, with amiable perversity.
+I caught five, weighing between two and four pounds each, and stopped
+because my hands were so numb that I could cast no longer.
+
+Now for a long tramp over the hills and home. Yes, home; for yonder in
+the white house at Drivstuen, with fuchsias and geraniums blooming in
+the windows, and a pretty, friendly Norse girl to keep her company, my
+lady is waiting for me. See, she comes running out to the door, in the
+gathering dusk, with a red flower in her hair, and hails me with the
+fisherman's greeting. WHAT LUCK?
+
+Well, THIS luck, at all events! I can show you a few good fish, and sit
+down with you to a supper of reindeer-venison and a quiet evening of
+music and talk.
+
+
+Shall I forget thee, hospitable Stuefloten, dearest to our memory of all
+the rustic stations in Norway? There are no stars beside thy name in the
+pages of Baedeker. But in the book of our hearts a whole constellation
+is thine.
+
+The long, low, white farmhouse stands on a green hill at the head of
+the Romsdal. A flourishing crop of grass and flowers grows on the
+stable-roof, and there is a little belfry with a big bell to call the
+labourers home from the fields. In the corner of the living-room of the
+old house there is a broad fireplace built across the angle. Curious
+cupboards are tucked away everywhere. The long table in the dining-room
+groans thrice a day with generous fare. There are as many kinds of hot
+bread as in a Virginia country-house; the cream is thick enough to
+make a spoon stand up in amazement; once, at dinner, we sat embarrassed
+before six different varieties of pudding.
+
+In the evening, when the saffron light is beginning to fade, we go out
+and walk in the road before the house, looking down the long mystical
+vale of the Rauma, or up to the purple western hills from which the
+clear streams of the Ulvaa flow to meet us.
+
+Above Stuefloten the Rauma lingers and meanders through a smoother and
+more open valley, with broad beds of gravel and flowery meadows. Here
+the trout and grayling grow fat and lusty, and here we angle for them,
+day after day, in water so crystalline that when one steps into the
+stream one hardly knows whether to expect a depth of six inches or six
+feet.
+
+Tiny English flies and leaders of gossamer are the tackle for such water
+in midsummer. With this delicate outfit, and with a light hand and
+a long line, one may easily outfish the native angler, and fill a
+twelve-pound basket every fair day. I remember an old Norwegian, an
+inveterate fisherman, whose footmarks we saw ahead of us on the stream
+all through an afternoon. Footmarks I call them; and so they were,
+literally, for there were only the prints of a single foot to be seen
+on the banks of sand, and between them, a series of small, round, deep
+holes.
+
+"What kind of a bird made those marks, Frederik?" I asked my faithful
+guide.
+
+"That is old Pedersen," he said, "with his wooden leg. He makes a dot
+after every step. We shall catch him in a little while."
+
+Sure enough, about six o'clock we saw him standing on a grassy point,
+hurling his line, with a fat worm on the end of it, far across the
+stream, and letting it drift down with the current. But the water was
+too fine for that style of fishing, and the poor old fellow had but a
+half dozen little fish. My creel was already overflowing, so I emptied
+out all of the grayling into his bag, and went on up the river to
+complete my tale of trout before dark.
+
+And when the fishing is over, there is Graygown with the wagon, waiting
+at the appointed place under the trees, beside the road. The sturdy
+white pony trots gayly homeward. The pale yellow stars blossom out above
+the hills again, as they did on that first night when we were driving
+down into the Valders. Frederik leans over the back of the seat, telling
+us marvellous tales, in his broken English, of the fishing in a certain
+lake among the mountains, and of the reindeer-shooting on the fjeld
+beyond it.
+
+"It is sad that you go to-morrow," says he "but you come back another
+year, I think, to fish in that lake, and to shoot those reindeer."
+
+Yes, Frederik, we are coming back to Norway some day, perhaps,--who can
+tell? It is one of the hundred places that we are vaguely planning to
+revisit. For, though we did not see the midnight sun there, we saw the
+honeymoon most distinctly. And it was bright enough to take pictures by
+its light.
+
+
+
+
+WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS?
+
+
+"My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that ultimately the
+sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall become, as
+it were, interwoven into man's existence. He shall take from all their
+beauty and enjoy their glory."--RICHARD JEFFERIES: The Life of the
+Fields.
+
+
+It was the little lad that asked the question; and the answer also, as
+you will see, was mainly his.
+
+We had been keeping Sunday afternoon together in our favourite fashion,
+following out that pleasant text which tells us to "behold the fowls
+of the air." There is no injunction of Holy Writ less burdensome in
+acceptance, or more profitable in obedience, than this easy out-of-doors
+commandment. For several hours we walked in the way of this precept,
+through the untangled woods that lie behind the Forest Hills Lodge,
+where a pair of pigeon-hawks had their nest; and around the
+brambly shores of the small pond, where Maryland yellow-throats and
+song-sparrows were settled; and under the lofty hemlocks of the fragment
+of forest across the road, where rare warblers flitted silently among
+the tree-tops. The light beneath the evergreens was growing dim as we
+came out from their shadow into the widespread glow of the sunset,
+on the edge of a grassy hill, overlooking the long valley of the Gale
+River, and uplooking to the Franconia Mountains.
+
+It was the benediction hour. The placid air of the day shed a new
+tranquillity over the consoling landscape. The heart of the earth
+seemed to taste a repose more perfect than that of common days.
+A hermit-thrush, far up the vale, sang his vesper hymn; while the
+swallows, seeking their evening meal, circled above the river-fields
+without an effort, twittering softly, now and then, as if they must give
+thanks. Slight and indefinable touches in the scene, perhaps the mere
+absence of the tiny human figures passing along the road or labouring in
+the distant meadows, perhaps the blue curls of smoke rising lazily
+from the farmhouse chimneys, or the family groups sitting under the
+maple-trees before the door, diffused a sabbath atmosphere over the
+world.
+
+Then said the lad, lying on the grass beside me, "Father, who owns the
+mountains?"
+
+I happened to have heard, the day before, of two or three lumber
+companies that had bought some of the woodland slopes; so I told him
+their names, adding that there were probably a good many different
+owners, whose claims taken all together would cover the whole Franconia
+range of hills.
+
+"Well," answered the lad, after a moment of silence, "I don't see what
+difference that makes. Everybody can look at them."
+
+They lay stretched out before us in the level sunlight, the sharp peaks
+outlined against the sky, the vast ridges of forest sinking smoothly
+towards the valleys, the deep hollows gathering purple shadows in their
+bosoms, and the little foothills standing out in rounded promontories of
+brighter green from the darker mass behind them.
+
+Far to the east, the long comb of Twin Mountain extended itself back
+into the untrodden wilderness. Mount Garfield lifted a clear-cut
+pyramid through the translucent air. The huge bulk of Lafayette ascended
+majestically in front of us, crowned with a rosy diadem of rocks. Eagle
+Cliff and Bald Mountain stretched their line of scalloped peaks across
+the entrance to the Notch. Beyond that shadowy vale, the swelling
+summits of Cannon Mountain rolled away to meet the tumbling waves of
+Kinsman, dominated by one loftier crested billow that seemed almost
+ready to curl and break out of green silence into snowy foam. Far down
+the sleeping Landaff valley the undulating dome of Moosilauke trembled
+in the distant blue.
+
+They were all ours, from crested cliff to wooded base. The solemn groves
+of firs and spruces, the plumed sierras of lofty pines, the stately
+pillared forests of birch and beech, the wild ravines, the tremulous
+thickets of silvery poplar, the bare peaks with their wide outlooks, and
+the cool vales resounding with the ceaseless song of little rivers,--we
+knew and loved them all; they ministered peace and joy to us; they were
+all ours, though we held no title deeds and our ownership had never been
+recorded.
+
+What is property, after all? The law says there are two kinds, real and
+personal. But it seems to me that the only real property is that which
+is truly personal, that which we take into our inner life and make our
+own forever, by understanding and admiration and sympathy and love. This
+is the only kind of possession that is worth anything.
+
+A gallery of great paintings adorns the house of the Honourable Midas
+Bond, and every year adds a new treasure to his collection. He knows
+how much they cost him, and he keeps the run of the quotations at the
+auction sales, congratulating himself as the price of the works of
+his well-chosen artists rises in the scale, and the value of his art
+treasures is enhanced. But why should he call them his? He is only their
+custodian. He keeps them well varnished, and framed in gilt. But he
+never passes through those gilded frames into the world of beauty that
+lies behind the painted canvas. He knows nothing of those lovely places
+from which the artist's soul and hand have drawn their inspiration. They
+are closed and barred to him. He has bought the pictures, but he cannot
+buy the key. The poor art student who wanders through his gallery,
+lingering with awe and love before the masterpieces, owns them far more
+truly than Midas does.
+
+Pomposus Silverman purchased a rich library a few years ago. The books
+were rare and costly. That was the reason why Pomposus bought them. He
+was proud to feel that he was the possessor of literary treasures which
+were not to be found in the houses of his wealthiest acquaintances.
+But the threadbare Bucherfreund, who was engaged at a slender salary to
+catalogue the library and take care of it, became the real proprietor.
+Pomposus paid for the books, but Bucherfreund enjoyed them.
+
+I do not mean to say that the possession of much money is always a
+barrier to real wealth of mind and heart. Nor would I maintain that all
+the poor of this world are rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. But
+some of them are. And if some of the rich of this world (through the
+grace of Him with whom all things are possible) are also modest in their
+tastes, and gentle in their hearts, and open in their minds, and ready
+to be pleased with unbought pleasures, they simply share in the best
+things which are provided for all.
+
+I speak not now of the strife that men wage over the definition and
+the laws of property. Doubtless there is much here that needs to be set
+right. There are men and women in the world who are shut out from the
+right to earn a living, so poor that they must perish for want of daily
+bread, so full of misery that there is no room for the tiniest seed of
+joy in their lives. This is the lingering shame of civilization. Some
+day, perhaps, we shall find the way to banish it. Some day, every
+man shall have his title to a share in the world's great work and the
+world's large joy.
+
+But meantime it is certain that, where there are a hundred poor bodies
+who suffer from physical privation, there are a thousand poor souls who
+suffer from spiritual poverty. To relive this greater suffering there
+needs no change of laws, only a change of heart.
+
+What does it profit a man to be the landed proprietor of countless acres
+unless he can reap the harvest of delight that blooms from every rood of
+God's earth for the seeing eye and the loving spirit? And who can reap
+that harvest so closely that there shall not be abundant gleaning left
+for all mankind? The most that a wide estate can yield to its legal
+owner is a living. But the real owner can gather from a field of
+goldenrod, shining in the August sunlight, an unearned increment of
+delight.
+
+We measure success by accumulation. The measure is false. The true
+measure is appreciation. He who loves most has most.
+
+How foolishly we train ourselves for the work of life! We give our most
+arduous and eager efforts to the cultivation of those faculties which
+will serve us in the competitions of the forum and the market-place.
+But if we were wise, we should care infinitely more for the unfolding of
+those inward, secret, spiritual powers by which alone we can become
+the owners of anything that is worth having. Surely God is the
+great proprietor. Yet all His works He has given away. He holds no
+title-deeds. The one thing that is His, is the perfect understanding,
+the perfect joy, the perfect love, of all things that He has made. To
+a share in this high ownership He welcomes all who are poor in spirit.
+This is the earth which the meek inherit. This is the patrimony of the
+saints in light.
+
+"Come, laddie," I said to my comrade, "let us go home. You and I are
+very rich. We own the mountains. But we can never sell them, and we
+don't want to."
+
+
+
+
+A LAZY, IDLE BROOK
+
+
+     "Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only
+     to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.
+     And it is not by any means certain that a man's business is
+     the most important thing he has to do."
+
+     --ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: An Apology for Idlers.
+
+
+
+
+I. A CASUAL INTRODUCTION
+
+
+On the South Shore of Long Island, all things incline to a natural
+somnolence. There are no ambitious mountains, no braggart cliffs, no
+hasty torrents, no hustling waterfalls in that land,
+
+
+   "In which it seemeth always afternoon."
+
+
+The salt meadows sleep in the summer sun; the farms and market-gardens
+yield a placid harvest to a race of singularly unhurried tillers of the
+soil; the low hills rise with gentle slopes, not caring to get too high
+in the world, only far enough to catch a pleasant glimpse of the sea and
+a breath of fresh air; the very trees grow leisurely, as if they felt
+that they had "all the time there is." And from this dreamy land, close
+as it lies to the unresting ocean, the tumult of the breakers and the
+foam of ever-turning tides are shut off by the languid lagoons of the
+Great South Bay and a long range of dunes, crested with wire-grass,
+bay-bushes, and wild-roses.
+
+In such a country you could not expect a little brook to be noisy,
+fussy, energetic. If it were not lazy, it would be out of keeping.
+
+But the actual and undisguised idleness of this particular brook was
+another affair, and one in which it was distinguished among its fellows.
+For almost all the other little rivers of the South Shore, lazy as they
+may be by nature, yet manage to do some kind of work before they finish
+the journey from their crystal-clear springs into the brackish waters
+of the bay. They turn the wheels of sleepy gristmills, while the miller
+sits with his hands in his pockets underneath the willow-trees. They
+fill reservoirs out of which great steam-engines pump the water to
+quench the thirst of Brooklyn. Even the smaller streams tarry long
+enough in their seaward sauntering to irrigate a few cranberry-bogs
+and so provide that savoury sauce which makes the Long Island turkey a
+fitter subject for Thanksgiving.
+
+But this brook of which I speak did none of these useful things. It was
+absolutely out of business.
+
+There was not a mill, nor a reservoir, nor a cranberry-bog, on all its
+course of a short mile. The only profitable affair it ever undertook was
+to fill a small ice-pond near its entrance into the Great South Bay.
+You could hardly call this a very energetic enterprise. It amounted to
+little more than a good-natured consent to allow itself to be used by
+the winter for the making of ice, if the winter happened to be cold
+enough. Even this passive industry came to nothing; for the water, being
+separated from the bay only by a short tideway under a wooden bridge on
+the south country road, was too brackish to freeze easily; and the ice,
+being pervaded with weeds, was not much relished by the public. So the
+wooden ice-house, innocent of paint, and toned by the weather to a soft,
+sad-coloured gray, stood like an improvised ruin among the pine-trees
+beside the pond.
+
+It was through this unharvested ice-pond, this fallow field of water,
+that my lady Graygown and I entered on acquaintance with our lazy, idle
+brook. We had a house, that summer, a few miles down the bay. But it was
+a very small house, and the room that we like best was out of doors.
+So we spent much time in a sailboat,--by name "The Patience,"--making
+voyages of exploration into watery corners and byways. Sailing past the
+wooden bridge one day, when a strong east wind had made a very low
+tide, we observed the water flowing out beneath the road with an eddying
+current. We were interested to discover where such a stream came from.
+But the sailboat could not go under the bridge, nor even make a landing
+on the shore without risk of getting aground. The next day we came back
+in a rowboat to follow the clue of curiosity. The tide was high now, and
+we passed with the reversed current under the bridge, almost bumping our
+heads against the timbers. Emerging upon the pond, we rowed across its
+shallow, weed-encumbered waters, and were introduced without ceremony to
+one of the most agreeable brooks that we had ever met.
+
+It was quite broad where it came into the pond,--a hundred feet from
+side to side,--bordered with flags and rushes and feathery meadow
+grasses. The real channel meandered in sweeping curves from bank to
+bank, and the water, except in the swifter current, was filled with an
+amazing quantity of some aquatic moss. The woods came straggling down on
+either shore. There were fallen trees in the stream here and there. On
+one of the points an old swamp-maple, with its decrepit branches and its
+leaves already touched with the hectic colours of decay, hung far out
+over the water which was undermining it, looking and leaning downward,
+like an aged man who bends, half-sadly and half-willingly, towards the
+grave.
+
+But for the most part the brook lay wide open to the sky, and the tide,
+rising and sinking somewhat irregularly in the pond below, made curious
+alternations in its depth and in the swiftness of its current. For about
+half a mile we navigated this lazy little river, and then we found
+that rowing would carry us no farther, for we came to a place where the
+stream issued with a livelier flood from an archway in a thicket.
+
+This woodland portal was not more than four feet wide, and the branches
+of the small trees were closely interwoven overhead. We shipped the oars
+and took one of them for a paddle. Stooping down, we pushed the boat
+through the archway and found ourselves in the Fairy Dell. It was a
+long, narrow bower, perhaps four hundred feet from end to end, with the
+brook dancing through it in a joyous, musical flow over a bed of clean
+yellow sand and white pebbles. There were deep places in the curves
+where you could hardly touch bottom with an oar, and shallow places
+in the straight runs where the boat would barely float. Not a ray
+of unbroken sunlight leaked through the green roof of this winding
+corridor; and all along the sides there were delicate mosses and tall
+ferns and wildwood flowers that love the shade.
+
+At the upper end of the bower our progress in the boat was barred by a
+low bridge, on a forgotten road that wound through the pine-woods. Here
+I left my lady Graygown, seated on the shady corner of the bridge with a
+book, swinging her feet over the stream, while I set out to explore its
+further course. Above the wood-road there were no more fairy dells, nor
+easy-going estuaries. The water came down through the most complicated
+piece of underbrush that I have ever encountered. Alders and swamp
+maples and pussy-willows and gray birches grew together in a wild
+confusion. Blackberry bushes and fox-grapes and cat-briers trailed and
+twisted themselves in an incredible tangle. There was only one way to
+advance, and that was to wade in the middle of the brook, stooping low,
+lifting up the pendulous alder-branches, threading a tortuous course,
+now under and now over the innumerable obstacles, as a darning-needle is
+pushed in and out through the yarn of a woollen stocking.
+
+It was dark and lonely in that difficult passage. The brook divided into
+many channels, turning this way and that way, as if it were lost in the
+woods. There were huge clumps of OSMUNDA REGALIS spreading their fronds
+in tropical profusion. Mouldering logs were covered with moss. The water
+gurgled slowly into deep corners under the banks. Catbirds and blue
+jays fluttered screaming from the thickets. Cotton-tailed rabbits darted
+away, showing the white flag of fear. Once I thought I saw the fuscous
+gleam of a red fox stealing silently through the brush. It would have
+been no surprise to hear the bark of a raccoon, or see the eyes of a
+wildcat gleaming through the leaves.
+
+For more than an hour I was pushing my way through this miniature
+wilderness of half a mile; and then I emerged suddenly, to find myself
+face to face with--a railroad embankment and the afternoon express, with
+its parlour-cars, thundering down to Southampton!
+
+It was a strange and startling contrast. The explorer's joy, the sense
+of adventure, the feeling of wildness and freedom, withered and crumpled
+somewhat preposterously at the sight of the parlour-cars. My scratched
+hands and wet boots and torn coat seemed unkempt and disreputable.
+Perhaps some of the well-dressed people looking out at the windows
+of the train were the friends with whom we were to dine on Saturday.
+BATECHE! What would they say to such a costume as mine? What did I care
+what they said!
+
+But, all the same, it was a shock, a disenchantment, to find that
+civilization, with all its absurdities and conventionalities, was so
+threateningly close to my new-found wilderness. My first enthusiasm was
+not a little chilled as I walked back, along an open woodland path, to
+the bridge where Graygown was placidly reading. Reading, I say, though
+her book was closed, and her brown eyes were wandering over the green
+leaves of the thicket, and the white clouds drifting, drifting lazily
+across the blue deep of the sky.
+
+
+
+
+II. A BETTER ACQUAINTANCE
+
+
+On the voyage home, she gently talked me out of my disappointment, and
+into a wiser frame of mind.
+
+It was a surprise, of course, she admitted, to find that our wilderness
+was so little, and to discover the trail of a parlour-car on the edge
+of Paradise. But why not turn the surprise around, and make it pleasant
+instead of disagreeable? Why not look at the contrast from the side that
+we liked best?
+
+It was not necessary that everybody should take the same view of life
+that pleased us. The world would not get on very well without people
+who preferred parlour-cars to canoes, and patent-leather shoes to
+India-rubber boots, and ten-course dinners to picnics in the woods.
+These good people were unconsciously toiling at the hard and necessary
+work of life in order that we, of the chosen and fortunate few, should
+be at liberty to enjoy the best things in the world.
+
+Why should we neglect our opportunities, which were also our real
+duties? The nervous disease of civilization might prevail all around
+us, but that ought not to destroy our grateful enjoyment of the lucid
+intervals that were granted to us by a merciful Providence.
+
+Why should we not take this little untamed brook, running its humble
+course through the borders of civilized life and midway between two
+flourishing summer resorts,--a brook without a single house or a
+cultivated field on its banks, as free and beautiful and secluded as if
+it flowed through miles of trackless forest,--why not take this brook as
+a sign that the ordering of the universe had a "good intention" even for
+inveterate idlers, and that the great Arranger of the world felt some
+kindness for such gipsy-hearts as ours? What law, human or divine, was
+there to prevent us from making this stream our symbol of deliverance
+from the conventional and commonplace, our guide to liberty and a quiet
+mind?
+
+So reasoned Graygown with her
+
+
+          "most silver flow
+     Of subtle-paced counsel in distress."
+
+
+And, according to her word, so did we. That lazy, idle brook became to
+us one of the best of friends; the pathfinder of happiness on many a
+bright summer day; and, through long vacations, the faithful encourager
+of indolence.
+
+Indolence in the proper sense of the word, you understand. The meaning
+which is commonly given to it, as Archbishop Trench pointed out in his
+suggestive book about WORDS AND THEIR USES, is altogether false. To
+speak of indolence as if it were a vice is just a great big verbal
+slander.
+
+Indolence is a virtue. It comes from two Latin words, which mean freedom
+from anxiety or grief. And that is a wholesome state of mind. There are
+times and seasons when it is even a pious and blessed state of mind. Not
+to be in a hurry; not to be ambitious or jealous or resentful; not
+to feel envious of anybody; not to fret about to-day nor worry about
+to-morrow,--that is the way we ought all to feel at some time in our
+lives; and that is the kind of indolence in which our brook faithfully
+encouraged us.
+
+'T is an age in which such encouragement is greatly needed. We have
+fallen so much into the habit of being always busy that we know not how
+nor when to break it off with firmness. Our business tags after us into
+the midst of our pleasures, and we are ill at ease beyond reach of the
+telegraph and the daily newspaper. We agitate ourselves amazingly
+about a multitude of affairs,--the politics of Europe, the state of the
+weather all around the globe, the marriages and festivities of very rich
+people, and the latest novelties in crime, none of which are of vital
+interest to us. The more earnest souls among us are cultivating
+a vicious tendency to Summer Schools, and Seaside Institutes of
+Philosophy, and Mountaintop Seminaries of Modern Languages.
+
+We toil assiduously to cram something more into those scrap-bags of
+knowledge which we fondly call our minds. Seldom do we rest tranquil
+long enough to find out whether there is anything in them already that
+is of real value,--any native feeling, any original thought, which would
+like to come out and sun itself for a while in quiet.
+
+For my part, I am sure that I stand more in need of a deeper sense of
+contentment with life than of a knowledge of the Bulgarian tongue, and
+that all the paradoxes of Hegel would not do me so much good as one hour
+of vital sympathy with the careless play of children. The Marquis du
+Paty de l'Huitre may espouse the daughter and heiress of the Honourable
+James Bulger with all imaginable pomp, if he will. CA NE M'INTRIGUE
+POINT DU TOUT. I would rather stretch myself out on the grass and watch
+yonder pair of kingbirds carrying luscious flies to their young ones in
+the nest, or chasing away the marauding crow with shrill cries of anger.
+
+What a pretty battle it is, and in a good cause, too! Waste no pity on
+that big black ruffian. He is a villain and a thief, an egg-stealer, an
+ogre, a devourer of unfledged innocents. The kingbirds are not afraid of
+him, knowing that he is a coward at heart. They fly upon him, now from
+below, now from above. They buffet him from one side and from the other.
+They circle round him like a pair of swift gunboats round an antiquated
+man-of-war. They even perch upon his back and dash their beaks into
+his neck and pluck feathers from his piratical plumage. At last his
+lumbering flight has carried him far enough away, and the brave little
+defenders fly back to the nest, poising above it on quivering wings for
+a moment, then dipping down swiftly in pursuit of some passing insect.
+The war is over. Courage has had its turn. Now tenderness comes into
+play. The young birds, all ignorant of the passing danger, but always
+conscious of an insatiable hunger, are uttering loud remonstrances and
+plaintive demands for food. Domestic life begins again, and they that
+sow not, neither gather into barns, are fed.
+
+
+Do you suppose that this wondrous stage of earth was set, and all the
+myriad actors on it taught to play their parts, without a spectator in
+view? Do you think that there is anything better for you and me to do,
+now and then, than to sit down quietly in a humble seat, and watch a few
+scenes in the drama? Has it not something to say to us, and do we not
+understand it best when we have a peaceful heart and free from dolor?
+That is what IN-DOLENCE means, and there are no better teachers of it
+then the light-hearted birds and untoiling flowers, commended by the
+wisest of all masters to our consideration; nor can we find a more
+pleasant pedagogue to lead us to their school than a small, merry brook.
+
+And this was what our chosen stream did for us. It was always luring us
+away from an artificial life into restful companionship with nature.
+
+Suppose, for example, we found ourselves growing a bit dissatisfied
+with the domestic arrangements of our little cottage, and coveting the
+splendours of a grander establishment. An afternoon on the brook was
+a good cure for that folly. Or suppose a day came when there was an
+imminent prospect of many formal calls. We had an important engagement
+up the brook; and while we kept it we could think with satisfaction of
+the joy of our callers when they discovered that they could discharge
+their whole duty with a piece of pasteboard. This was an altruistic
+pleasure. Or suppose that a few friends were coming to supper, and there
+were no flowers for the supper-table. We could easily have bought them
+in the village. But it was far more to our liking to take the children
+up the brook, and come back with great bunches of wild white honeysuckle
+and blue flag, or posies of arrowheads and cardinal-flowers. Or suppose
+that I was very unwisely and reluctantly labouring at some serious
+piece of literary work, promised for the next number of THE SCRIBBLER'S
+REVIEW; and suppose that in the midst of this labour the sad news came
+to me that the fisherman had forgotten to leave any fish at our cottage
+that morning. Should my innocent babes and my devoted wife be left to
+perish of starvation while I continued my poetical comparison of the two
+Williams, Shakspeare and Watson? Inhuman selfishness! Of course it was
+my plain duty to sacrifice my inclinations, and get my fly-rod, and row
+away across the bay, with a deceptive appearance of cheerfulness, to
+catch a basket of trout in--
+
+
+
+
+III. THE SECRETS OF INTIMACY
+
+
+THERE! I came within eight letters of telling the name of the brook,
+a thing that I am firmly resolved not to do. If it were an ordinary
+fishless little river, or even a stream with nothing better than
+grass-pike and sunfish in it, you should have the name and welcome. But
+when a brook contains speckled trout, and when their presence is known
+to a very few persons who guard the secret as the dragon guarded the
+golden apples of the Hesperides, and when the size of the trout is large
+beyond the dreams of hope,--well, when did you know a true angler who
+would willingly give away the name of such a brook as that? You may find
+an encourager of indolence in almost any stream of the South Side, and
+I wish you joy of your brook. But if you want to catch trout in mine
+you must discover it for yourself, or perhaps go with me some day, and
+solemnly swear secrecy.
+
+That was the way in which the freedom of the stream was conferred
+upon me. There was a small boy in the village, the son of rich but
+respectable parents, and an inveterate all-round sportsman, aged
+fourteen years, with whom I had formed a close intimacy. I was telling
+him about the pleasure of exploring the idle brook, and expressing the
+opinion that in bygone days, (in that mythical "forty years ago" when
+all fishing was good), there must have been trout in it. A certain
+look came over the boy's face. He gazed at me solemnly, as if he were
+searching the inmost depths of my character before he spoke.
+
+"Say, do you want to know something?"
+
+I assured him that an increase of knowledge was the chief aim of my
+life.
+
+"Do you promise you won't tell?"
+
+I expressed my readiness to be bound to silence by the most awful pledge
+that the law would sanction.
+
+"Wish you may die?"
+
+I not only wished that I might die, but was perfectly certain that I
+would die.
+
+"Well, what's the matter with catching trout in that brook now? Do you
+want to go with me next Saturday? I saw four or five bully ones last
+week, and got three."
+
+On the appointed day we made the voyage, landed at the upper bridge,
+walked around by the woodpath to the railroad embankment, and began
+to worm our way down through the tangled wilderness. Fly-fishing, of
+course, was out of the question. The only possible method of angling
+was to let the line, baited with a juicy "garden hackle," drift down the
+current as far as possible before you, under the alder-branches and the
+cat-briers, into the holes and corners of the stream. Then, if there
+came a gentle tug on the rod, you must strike, to one side or the other,
+as the branches might allow, and trust wholly to luck for a chance to
+play the fish. Many a trout we lost that day,--the largest ones, of
+course,--and many a hook was embedded in a sunken log, or hopelessly
+entwined among the boughs overhead. But when we came out at the bridge,
+very wet and disheveled, we had seven pretty fish, the heaviest about
+half a pound. The Fairy Dell yielded a brace of smaller ones, and
+altogether we were reasonably happy as we took up the oars and pushed
+out upon the open stream.
+
+But if there were fish above, why should there not be fish below? It was
+about sunset, the angler's golden hour. We were already committed to
+the crime of being late for supper. It would add little to our guilt and
+much to our pleasure to drift slowly down the middle of the brook and
+cast the artful fly in the deeper corners on either shore. So I took off
+the vulgar bait-hook and put on a delicate leader with a Queen of the
+Water for a tail-fly and a Yellow Sally for a dropper,--innocent little
+confections of feathers and tinsel, dressed on the tiniest hooks, and
+calculated to tempt the appetite or the curiosity of the most capricious
+trout.
+
+For a long time the whipping of the water produced no result, and it
+seemed as if the dainty style of angling were destined to prove less
+profitable than plain fishing with a worm. But presently we came to
+an elbow of the brook, just above the estuary, where there was quite a
+stretch of clear water along the lower side, with two half-sunken logs
+sticking out from the bank, against which the current had drifted a
+broad raft of weeds. I made a long cast, and sent the tail-fly close to
+the edge of the weeds. There was a swelling ripple on the surface of the
+water, and a noble fish darted from under the logs, dashed at the fly,
+missed it, and whirled back to his shelter.
+
+"Gee!" said the boy, "that was a whacker! He made a wake like a
+steamboat."
+
+It was a moment for serious thought. What was best to be done with that
+fish? Leave him to settle down for the night and come back after him
+another day? Or try another cast for him at once? A fish on Saturday
+evening is worth two on Monday morning. I changed the Queen of the
+Water for a Royal Coachman tied on a number fourteen hook,--white wings,
+peacock body with a belt of crimson silk,--and sent it out again, a foot
+farther up the stream and a shade closer to the weeds. As it settled on
+the water, there was a flash of gold from the shadow beneath the logs,
+and a quick turn of the wrist made the tiny hook fast in the fish. He
+fought wildly to get back to the shelter of his logs, but the four ounce
+rod had spring enough in it to hold him firmly away from that dangerous
+retreat. Then he splurged up and down the open water, and made fierce
+dashes among the grassy shallows, and seemed about to escape a dozen
+times. But at last his force was played out; he came slowly towards the
+boat, turning on his side, and I netted him in my hat.
+
+"Bully for us;" said the boy, "we got him! What a dandy!"
+
+It was indeed one of the handsomest fish that I have ever taken on the
+South Side,--just short of two pounds and a quarter,--small head, broad
+tail, and well-rounded sides coloured with orange and blue and gold and
+red. A pair of the same kind, one weighing two pounds and the other a
+pound and three quarters, were taken by careful fishing down the lower
+end of the pool, and then we rowed home through the dusk, pleasantly
+convinced that there is no virtue more certainly rewarded than the
+patience of anglers, and entirely willing to put up with a cold supper
+and a mild reproof for the sake of sport.
+
+Of course we could not resist the temptation to show those fish to
+the neighbours. But, equally of course, we evaded the request to give
+precise information as to the precise place where they were caught.
+Indeed, I fear that there must have been something confused in our
+description of where we had been on that afternoon. Our carefully
+selected language may have been open to misunderstanding. At all events,
+the next day, which was the Sabbath, there was a row of eager but
+unprincipled anglers sitting on a bridge OVER ANOTHER STREAM, and
+fishing for trout with worms and large expectations, but without visible
+results.
+
+The boy and I agreed that if this did not teach a good moral lesson it
+was not our fault.
+
+I obtained the boy's consent to admit the partner of my life's joys and
+two of our children to the secret of the brook, and thereafter, when
+we visited it, we took the fly-rod with us. If by chance another boat
+passed us in the estuary, we were never fishing, but only gathering
+flowers, or going for a picnic, or taking photographs. But when the
+uninitiated ones had passed by, we would get out the rod again, and try
+a few more casts.
+
+One day in particular I remember, when Graygown and little Teddy were
+my companions. We really had no hopes of angling, for the hour was
+mid-noon, and the day was warm and still. But suddenly the trout, by
+one of those unaccountable freaks which make their disposition so
+interesting and attractive, began to rise all about us in a bend of the
+stream.
+
+"Look!" said Teddy; "wherever you see one of those big smiles on the
+water, I believe there's a fish!"
+
+Fortunately the rod was at hand. Graygown and Teddy managed the boat and
+the landing-net with consummate skill. We landed no less than a dozen
+beautiful fish at that most unlikely hour and then solemnly shook hands
+all around.
+
+There is a peculiar pleasure in doing a thing like this, catching trout
+in a place where nobody thinks of looking for them, and at an hour when
+everybody believes they cannot be caught. It is more fun to take one
+good fish out of an old, fished-out stream, near at hand to the village,
+than to fill a basket from some far-famed and well-stocked water. It
+is the unexpected touch that tickles our sense of pleasure. While life
+lasts, we are always hoping for it and expecting it. There is no country
+so civilized, no existence so humdrum, that there is not room enough in
+it somewhere for a lazy, idle brook, an encourager of indolence, with
+hope of happy surprises.
+
+
+
+
+THE OPEN FIRE
+
+
+     "It is a vulgar notion that a fire is only for heat.  A
+     chief value of it is, however, to look at.  And it is never
+     twice the same."
+
+     --CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER: Backlog Studies.
+
+
+
+
+I. LIGHTING UP
+
+
+Man is the animal that has made friends with the fire.
+
+All the other creatures, in their natural state, are afraid of it. They
+look upon it with wonder and dismay. It fascinates them, sometimes,
+with its glittering eyes in the night. The squirrels and the hares come
+pattering softly towards it through the underbrush around the new camp.
+The fascinated deer stares into the blaze of the jack-light while the
+hunter's canoe creeps through the lily-pads. But the charm that masters
+them is one of dread, not of love. It is the witchcraft of the serpent's
+lambent look. When they know what it means, when the heat of the
+fire touches them, or even when its smell comes clearly to their most
+delicate sense, they recognize it as their enemy, the Wild Huntsman
+whose red hounds can follow, follow for days without wearying, growing
+stronger and more furious with every turn of the chase. Let but a trail
+of smoke drift down the wind across the forest, and all the game for
+miles and miles will catch the signal for fear and flight.
+
+Many of the animals have learned how to make houses for themselves.
+The CABANE of the beaver is a wonder of neatness and comfort, much
+preferable to the wigwam of his Indian hunter. The muskrat knows how
+thick and high to build the dome of his waterside cottage, in order to
+protect himself against the frost of the coming winter and the floods of
+the following spring. The woodchuck's house has two or three doors; and
+the squirrel's dwelling is provided with a good bed and a convenient
+storehouse for nuts and acorns. The sportive otters have a toboggan
+slide in front of their residence; and the moose in winter make a
+"yard," where they can take exercise comfortably and find shelter for
+sleep. But there is one thing lacking in all these various dwellings,--a
+fireplace.
+
+Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire and to live with it.
+The reason? Because he alone has learned how to put it out.
+
+It is true that two of his humbler friends have been converted to
+fire-worship. The dog and the cat, being half-humanized, have begun to
+love the fire. I suppose that a cat seldom comes so near to feeling a
+true sense of affection as when she has finished her saucer of bread and
+milk, and stretched herself luxuriously underneath the kitchen stove,
+while her faithful mistress washes up the dishes. As for a dog, I am
+sure that his admiring love for his master is never greater than when
+they come in together from the hunt, wet and tired, and the man gathers
+a pile of wood in front of the tent, touches it with a tiny magic wand,
+and suddenly the clear, consoling flame springs up, saying cheerfully,
+"Here we are, at home in the forest; come into the warmth; rest, and
+eat, and sleep." When the weary, shivering dog sees this miracle, he
+knows that his master is a great man and a lord of things.
+
+After all, that is the only real open fire. Wood is the fuel for it.
+Out-of-doors is the place for it. A furnace is an underground prison
+for a toiling slave. A stove is a cage for a tame bird. Even a broad
+hearthstone and a pair of glittering andirons--the best ornament of a
+room--must be accepted as an imitation of the real thing. The veritable
+open fire is built in the open, with the whole earth for a fireplace and
+the sky for a chimney.
+
+To start a fire in the open is by no means as easy as it looks. It is
+one of those simple tricks that every one thinks he can perform until he
+tries it.
+
+To do it without trying,--accidentally and unwillingly,--that, of
+course, is a thing for which any fool is fit. You knock out the ashes
+from your pipe on a fallen log; you toss the end of a match into a patch
+of grass, green on top, but dry as punk underneath; you scatter the
+dead brands of an old fire among the moss,--a conflagration is under way
+before you know it.
+
+A fire in the woods is one thing; a comfort and a joy. Fire in the woods
+is another thing; a terror, an uncontrollable fury, a burning shame.
+
+But the lighting up of a proper fire, kindly, approachable, serviceable,
+docile, is a work of intelligence. If, perhaps, you have to do it in the
+rain, with a single match, it requires no little art and skill.
+
+There is plenty of wood everywhere, but not a bit to burn. The fallen
+trees are waterlogged. The dead leaves are as damp as grief. The charred
+sticks that you find in an old fireplace are absolutely incombustible.
+Do not trust the handful of withered twigs and branches that you gather
+from the spruce-trees. They seem dry, but they are little better for
+your purpose than so much asbestos. You make a pile of them in some
+apparently suitable hollow, and lay a few larger sticks on top. Then
+you hastily scratch your solitary match on the seat of your trousers and
+thrust it into the pile of twigs. What happens? The wind whirls around
+in your stupid little hollow, and the blue flame of the sulphur spirts
+and sputters for an instant, and then goes out. Or perhaps there is
+a moment of stillness; the match flares up bravely; the nearest twigs
+catch fire, crackling and sparkling; you hurriedly lay on more sticks;
+but the fire deliberately dodges them, creeps to the corner of the pile
+where the twigs are fewest and dampest, snaps feebly a few times, and
+expires in smoke. Now where are you? How far is it to the nearest match?
+
+If you are wise, you will always make your fire before you light it.
+Time is never saved by doing a thing badly.
+
+
+
+
+II. THE CAMP-FIRE
+
+
+In the making of fires there is as much difference as in the building of
+houses. Everything depends upon the purpose that you have in view. There
+is the camp-fire, and the cooking-fire, and the smudge-fire, and the
+little friendship-fire,--not to speak of other minor varieties. Each of
+these has its own proper style of architecture, and to mix them is false
+art and poor economy.
+
+The object of the camp-fire is to give heat, and incidentally light, to
+your tent or shanty. You can hardly build this kind of a fire unless you
+have a good axe and know how to chop. For the first thing that you need
+is a solid backlog, the thicker the better, to hold the heat and reflect
+it into the tent. This log must not be too dry, or it will burn
+out quickly. Neither must it be too damp, else it will smoulder and
+discourage the fire. The best wood for it is the body of a yellow birch,
+and, next to that, a green balsam. It should be five or six feet long,
+and at least two and a half feet in diameter. If you cannot find a
+tree thick enough, cut two or three lengths of a smaller one; lay the
+thickest log on the ground first, about ten or twelve feet in front of
+the tent; drive two strong stakes behind it, slanting a little backward;
+and lay the other logs on top of the first, resting against the stakes.
+
+Now you are ready for the hand-chunks, or andirons. These are shorter
+sticks of wood, eight or ten inches thick, laid at right angles to the
+backlog, four or five feet apart. Across these you are to build up the
+firewood proper.
+
+Use a dry spruce-tree, not one that has fallen, but one that is dead and
+still standing, if you want a lively, snapping fire. Use a hard maple
+or a hickory if you want a fire that will burn steadily and make few
+sparks. But if you like a fire to blaze up at first with a splendid
+flame, and then burn on with an enduring heat far into the night, a
+young white birch with the bark on is the tree to choose. Six or eight
+round sticks of this laid across the hand-chunks, with perhaps a few
+quarterings of a larger tree, will make a glorious fire.
+
+But before you put these on, you must be ready to light up. A few
+splinters of dry spruce or pine or balsam, stood endwise against
+the backlog, or, better still, piled up in a pyramid between the
+hand-chunks; a few strips of birch-bark; and one good match,--these
+are all that you want. But be sure that your match is a good one. It is
+better to see to this before you go into the brush. Your comfort, even
+your life, may depend on it.
+
+"AVEC CES ALLUMETTES-LA," said my guide at LAC ST. JEAN one day, as he
+vainly tried to light his pipe with a box of parlour matches from the
+hotel,--AVEC CES GNOGNOTTES D'ALLUMETTES ON POURRA MOURIR AU BOIS!"
+
+In the woods, the old-fashioned brimstone match of our grandfathers--the
+match with a brown head and a stout stick and a dreadful smell--is the
+best. But if you have only one, do not trust even that to light your
+fire directly. Use it first to touch off a roll of birch-bark which you
+hold in your hand. Then, when the bark is well alight, crinkling and
+curling, push it under the heap of kindlings, give the flame time to
+take a good hold, and lay your wood over it, a stick at a time, until
+the whole pile is blazing. Now your fire is started. Your friendly
+little red-haired gnome is ready to serve you through the night.
+
+He will dry your clothes if you are wet. He will cheer you up if you are
+despondent. He will diffuse an air of sociability through the camp, and
+draw the men together in a half circle for storytelling and jokes and
+singing. He will hold a flambeau for you while you spread your blankets
+on the boughs and dress for bed. He will keep you warm while you
+sleep,--at least till about three o'clock in the morning, when you dream
+that you are out sleighing in your pajamas, and wake up with a shiver.
+
+"HOLA, FERDINAND, FRANCOIS!" you call out from your bed, pulling the
+blankets over your ears; "RAMANCHEZ LE FEU, S'IL VOUS PLAIT. C'EST UN
+FREITE DE CHIEN."
+
+
+
+
+III. THE COOKING-FIRE
+
+
+Of course such a fire as I have been describing can be used for cooking,
+when it has burned down a little, and there is a bed of hot embers in
+front of the backlog. But a correct kitchen fire should be constructed
+after another fashion. What you want now is not blaze, but heat, and
+that not diffused, but concentrated. You must be able to get close to
+your fire without burning your boots or scorching your face.
+
+If you have time and the material, make a fireplace of big stones. But
+not of granite, for that will split with the heat, and perhaps fly in
+your face.
+
+If you are in a hurry and there are no suitable stones at hand, lay two
+good logs nearly parallel with each other, a foot or so apart, and build
+your fire between them. For a cooking-fire, use split wood in short
+sticks. Let the first supply burn to glowing coals before you begin.
+A frying-pan that is lukewarm one minute and red-hot the next is the
+abomination of desolation. If you want black toast, have it made before
+a fresh, sputtering, blazing heap of wood.
+
+In fires, as in men, an excess of energy is a lack of usefulness. The
+best work is done without many sparks. Just enough is the right kind of
+a fire and a feast.
+
+To know how to cook is not a very elegant accomplishment. Yet there are
+times and seasons when it seems to come in better than familiarity with
+the dead languages, or much skill upon the lute.
+
+You cannot always rely on your guides for a tasteful preparation of
+food. Many of them are ignorant of the difference between frying and
+broiling, and their notion of boiling a potato or a fish is to reduce it
+to a pulp. Now and then you find a man who has a natural inclination to
+the culinary art, and who does very well within familiar limits.
+
+Old Edouard, the Montaignais Indian who cooked for my friends H. E. G.
+and C. S. D. last summer on the STE. MARGUERITE EN BAS, was such a man.
+But Edouard could not read, and the only way he could tell the nature
+of the canned provisions was by the pictures on the cans. If the picture
+was strange to him, there was no guessing what he would do with the
+contents of the can. He was capable of roasting strawberries, and
+serving green peas cold for dessert. One day a can of mullagatawny soup
+and a can of apricots were handed out to him simultaneously and without
+explanations. Edouard solved the problem by opening both cans and
+cooking them together. We had a new soup that day, MULLAGATAWNY AUX
+APRICOTS. It was not as bad as it sounds. It tasted somewhat like
+chutney.
+
+The real reason why food that is cooked over an open fire tastes so good
+to us is because we are really hungry when we get it. The man who puts
+up provisions for camp has a great advantage over the dealers who must
+satisfy the pampered appetite of people in houses. I never can get any
+bacon in New York like that which I buy at a little shop in Quebec to
+take into the woods. If I ever set up in the grocery business, I shall
+try to get a good trade among anglers. It will be easy to please my
+customers.
+
+The reputation that trout enjoy as a food-fish is partly due to the fact
+that they are usually cooked over an open fire. In the city they never
+taste as good. It is not merely a difference in freshness. It is a
+change in the sauce. If the truth must be told, even by an angler, there
+are at least five salt-water fish which are better than trout,--to eat.
+There is none better to catch.
+
+
+
+
+IV. THE SMUDGE-FIRE
+
+
+But enough of the cooking-fire. Let us turn now to the subject of
+the smudge, known in Lower Canada as LA BOUCANE. The smudge owes its
+existence to the pungent mosquito, the sanguinary black-fly, and the
+peppery midge,--LE MARINGOUIN, LA MOUSTIQUE, ET LE BRULOT. To what it
+owes its English name I do not know; but its French name means simply a
+thick, nauseating, intolerable smoke.
+
+The smudge is called into being for the express purpose of creating
+a smoke of this kind, which is as disagreeable to the mosquito, the
+black-fly, and the midge as it is to the man whom they are devouring.
+But the man survives the smoke, while the insects succumb to it, being
+destroyed or driven away. Therefore the smudge, dark and bitter in
+itself, frequently becomes, like adversity, sweet in its uses. It must
+be regarded as a form of fire with which man has made friends under the
+pressure of a cruel necessity.
+
+It would seem as if it ought to be the simplest affair in the world to
+light up a smudge. And so it is--if you are not trying.
+
+An attempt to produce almost any other kind of a fire will bring forth
+smoke abundantly. But when you deliberately undertake to create a
+smudge, flames break from the wettest timber, and green moss blazes with
+a furious heat. You hastily gather handfuls of seemingly incombustible
+material and throw it on the fire, but the conflagration increases.
+Grass and green leaves hesitate for an instant and then flash up like
+tinder. The more you put on, the more your smudge rebels against its
+proper task of smudging. It makes a pleasant warmth, to encourage the
+black-flies; and bright light to attract and cheer the mosquitoes. Your
+effort is a brilliant failure.
+
+The proper way to make a smudge is this. Begin with a very little, lowly
+fire. Let it be bright, but not ambitious. Don't try to make a smoke
+yet.
+
+Then gather a good supply of stuff which seems likely to suppress fire
+without smothering it. Moss of a certain kind will do, but not the soft,
+feathery moss that grows so deep among the spruce-trees. Half-decayed
+wood is good; spongy, moist, unpleasant stuff, a vegetable wet blanket.
+The bark of dead evergreen trees, hemlock, spruce, or balsam, is better
+still. Gather a plentiful store of it. But don't try to make a smoke
+yet.
+
+Let your fire burn a while longer; cheer it up a little. Get some clear,
+resolute, unquenchable coals aglow in the heart of it. Don't try to make
+a smoke yet.
+
+Now pile on your smouldering fuel. Fan it with your hat. Kneel down and
+blow it, and in ten minutes you will have a smoke that will make you
+wish you had never been born.
+
+That is the proper way to make a smudge. But the easiest way is to ask
+your guide to make it for you.
+
+If he makes it in an old iron pot, so much the better, for then you can
+move it around to the windward when the breeze veers, and carry it into
+your tent without risk of setting everything on fire, and even take it
+with you in the canoe while you are fishing.
+
+Some of the pleasantest pictures in the angler's gallery of remembrance
+are framed in the smoke that rises from a smudge.
+
+With my eyes shut, I can call up a vision of eight birch-bark canoes
+floating side by side on Moosehead Lake, on a fair June morning, fifteen
+years ago. They are anchored off Green Island, riding easily on the
+long, gentle waves. In the stern of each canoe there is a guide with
+a long-handled net; in the bow, an angler with a light fly-rod; in the
+middle, a smudge-kettle, smoking steadily. In the air to the windward
+of the little fleet hovers a swarm of flies drifting down on the
+shore breeze, with bloody purpose in their breasts, but baffled by the
+protecting smoke. In the water to the leeward plays a school of speckled
+trout, feeding on the minnows that hang around the sunken ledges of
+rock. As a larger wave than usual passes over the ledges, it lifts the
+fish up, and you can see the big fellows, three, and four, and even five
+pounds apiece, poising themselves in the clear brown water. A long cast
+will send the fly over one of them. Let it sink a foot. Draw it up with
+a fluttering motion. Now the fish sees it, and turns to catch it. There
+is a yellow gleam in the depth, a sudden swirl on the surface; you
+strike sharply, and the trout is matching his strength against the
+spring of your four ounces of split bamboo.
+
+You can guess at his size, as he breaks water, by the breadth of his
+tail: a pound of weight to an inch of tail,--that is the traditional
+measure, and it usually comes pretty close to the mark, at least in the
+case of large fish. But it is never safe to record the weight until the
+trout is in the canoe. As the Canadian hunters say, "Sell not the skin
+of the bear while he carries it."
+
+Now the breeze that blows over Green Island drops away, and the smoke
+of the eight smudge-kettles falls like a thick curtain. The canoes, the
+dark shores of Norcross Point, the twin peaks of Spencer Mountain, the
+dim blue summit of Katahdin, the dazzling sapphire sky, the flocks of
+fleece-white clouds shepherded on high by the western wind, all have
+vanished. With closed eyes I see another vision, still framed in
+smoke,--a vision of yesterday.
+
+It is a wild river flowing into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the COTE
+NORD, far down towards Labrador. There is a long, narrow, swift pool
+between two parallel ridges of rock. Over the ridge on the right pours
+a cataract of pale yellow foam. At the bottom of the pool, the water
+slides down into a furious rapid, and dashes straight through an
+impassable gorge half a mile to the sea. The pool is full of salmon,
+leaping merrily in their delight at coming into their native stream. The
+air is full of black-flies, rejoicing in the warmth of the July sun. On
+a slippery point of rock, below the fall, are two anglers, tempting the
+fish and enduring the flies. Behind them is an old HABITANT raising a
+mighty column of smoke.
+
+Through the cloudy pillar which keeps back the Egyptian host, you see
+the waving of a long rod. A silver-gray fly with a barbed tail darts out
+across the pool, swings around with the current, well under water, and
+slowly works past the big rock in the centre, just at the head of the
+rapid. Almost past it, but not quite: for suddenly the fly disappears;
+the line begins to run out; the reel sings sharp and shrill; a salmon is
+hooked.
+
+But how well is he hooked? That is the question. This is no easy pool to
+play a fish in. There is no chance to jump into a canoe and drop below
+him, and get the current to help you in drowning him. You cannot follow
+him along the shore. You cannot even lead him into quiet water, where
+the gaffer can creep near to him unseen and drag him in with a quick
+stroke. You must fight your fish to a finish, and all the advantages are
+on his side. The current is terribly strong. If he makes up his mind to
+go downstream to the sea, the only thing you can do is to hold him by
+main force; and then it is ten to one that the hook tears out or the
+leader breaks.
+
+It is not in human nature for one man to watch another handling a fish
+in such a place without giving advice. "Keep the tip of your rod up.
+Don't let your reel overrun. Stir him up a little, he 's sulking. Don't
+let him 'jig,' or you'll lose him. You 're playing him too hard. There,
+he 's going to jump again. Drop your tip. Stop him, quick! he 's going
+down the rapid!"
+
+Of course the man who is playing the salmon does not like this. If he is
+quick-tempered, sooner or later he tells his counsellor to shut up. But
+if he is a gentle, early-Christian kind of a man, wise as a serpent and
+harmless as a dove, he follows the advice that is given to him, promptly
+and exactly. Then, when it is all ended, and he has seen the big fish,
+with the line over his shoulder, poised for an instant on the crest of
+the first billow of the rapid, and has felt the leader stretch and give
+and SNAP!--then he can have the satisfaction, while he reels in his
+slack line, of saying to his friend, "Well, old man, I did everything
+just as you told me. But I think if I had pushed that fish a little
+harder at the beginning, AS I WANTED TO, I might have saved him."
+
+But really, of course, the chances were all against it. In such a pool,
+most of the larger fish get away. Their weight gives them a tremendous
+pull. The fish that are stopped from going into the rapid, and dragged
+back from the curling wave, are usually the smaller ones. Here they
+are,--twelve pounds, eight pounds, six pounds, five pounds and a half,
+FOUR POUNDS! Is not this the smallest salmon that you ever saw? Not
+a grilse, you understand, but a real salmon, of brightest silver,
+hall-marked with St. Andrew's cross.
+
+Now let us sit down for a moment and watch the fish trying to leap up
+the falls. There is a clear jump of about ten feet, and above that an
+apparently impossible climb of ten feet more up a ladder of twisting
+foam. A salmon darts from the boiling water at the bottom of the fall
+like an arrow from a bow. He rises in a beautiful curve, fins laid close
+to his body and tail quivering; but he has miscalculated his distance.
+He is on the downward curve when the water strikes him and tumbles him
+back. A bold little fish, not more than eighteen inches long, makes a
+jump at the side of the fall, where the water is thin, and is rolled
+over and over in the spray. A larger salmon rises close beside us with
+a tremendous rush, bumps his nose against a jutting rock, and flops back
+into the pool. Now comes a fish who has made his calculations exactly.
+He leaves the pool about eight feet from the foot of the fall, rises
+swiftly, spreads his fins, and curves his tail as if he were flying,
+strikes the water where it is thickest just below the brink, holds on
+desperately, and drives himself, with one last wriggle, through the
+bending stream, over the edge, and up the first step of the foaming
+stairway. He has obeyed the strongest instinct of his nature, and gone
+up to make love in the highest fresh water that he can reach.
+
+The smoke of the smudge-fire is sharp and tearful, but a man can learn
+to endure a good deal of it when he can look through its rings at such
+scenes as these.
+
+
+
+
+V. THE LITTLE FRIENDSHIP-FIRE
+
+
+There are times and seasons when the angler has no need of any of the
+three fires of which we have been talking. He sleeps in a house. His
+breakfast and dinner are cooked for him in a kitchen. He is in no great
+danger from black-flies or mosquitoes. All he needs now, as he sets out
+to spend a day on the Neversink, or the Willowemoc, or the Shepaug,
+or the Swiftwater, is a good lunch in his pocket, and a little
+friendship-fire to burn pleasantly beside him while he eats his frugal
+fare and prolongs his noonday rest.
+
+This form of fire does less work than any other in the world. Yet it is
+far from being useless; and I, for one, should be sorry to live without
+it. Its only use is to make a visible centre of interest where there are
+two or three anglers eating their lunch together, or to supply a kind of
+companionship to a lone fisherman. It is kindled and burns for no other
+purpose than to give you the sense of being at home and at ease. Why the
+fire should do this, I cannot tell, but it does.
+
+You may build your friendship-fire in almost any way that pleases you;
+but this is the way in which you shall build it best. You have no axe,
+of course, so you must look about for the driest sticks that you can
+find. Do not seek them close beside the stream, for there they are
+likely to be water-soaked; but go back into the woods a bit and gather
+a good armful of fuel. Then break it, if you can, into lengths of about
+two feet, and construct your fire in the following fashion.
+
+Lay two sticks parallel, and put between them a pile of dried grass,
+dead leaves, small twigs, and the paper in which your lunch was wrapped.
+Then lay two other sticks crosswise on top of your first pair. Strike
+your match and touch your kindlings. As the fire catches, lay on other
+pairs of sticks, each pair crosswise to the pair that is below it, until
+you have a pyramid of flame. This is "a Micmac fire" such as the Indians
+make in the woods.
+
+Now you can pull off your wading-boots and warm your feet at the blaze.
+You can toast your bread if you like. You can even make shift to broil
+one of your trout, fastened on the end of a birch twig if you have a
+fancy that way. When your hunger is satisfied, you shake out the crumbs
+for the birds and the squirrels, pick up a stick with a coal at the end
+to light your pipe, put some more wood on your fire, and settle down for
+an hour's reading if you have a book in your pocket, or for a good talk
+if you have a comrade with you.
+
+The stream of time flows swift and smooth, by such a fire as this. The
+moments slip past unheeded; the sun sinks down his western arch; the
+shadows begin to fall across the brook; it is time to move on for the
+afternoon fishing. The fire has almost burned out. But do not trust it
+too much. Throw some sand over it, or bring a hatful of water from the
+brook to pour on it, until you are sure that the last glowing ember is
+extinguished, and nothing but the black coals and the charred ends of
+the sticks are left.
+
+Even the little friendship-fire must keep the law of the bush. All
+lights out when their purpose is fulfilled!
+
+
+
+
+VI. ALTARS OF REMEMBRANCE
+
+
+It is a question that we have often debated, in the informal meetings of
+our Petrine Club: Which is pleasanter,--to fish an old stream, or a new
+one?
+
+The younger members are all for the "fresh woods and pastures new."
+They speak of the delight of turning off from the high-road into some
+faintly-marked trail; following it blindly through the forest, not
+knowing how far you have to go; hearing the voice of waters sounding
+through the woodland; leaving the path impatiently and striking straight
+across the underbrush; scrambling down a steep bank, pushing through
+a thicket of alders, and coming out suddenly, face to face with a
+beautiful, strange brook. It reminds you, of course, of some old friend.
+It is a little like the Beaverkill, or the Ausable, or the Gale
+River. And yet it is different. Every stream has its own character and
+disposition. Your new acquaintance invites you to a day of discoveries.
+If the water is high, you will follow it down, and have easy fishing.
+If the water is low, you will go upstream, and fish "fine and far-off."
+Every turn in the avenue which the little river has made for you opens
+up a new view,--a rocky gorge where the deep pools are divided by
+white-footed falls; a lofty forest where the shadows are deep and the
+trees arch overhead; a flat, sunny stretch where the stream is spread
+out, and pebbly islands divide the channels, and the big fish are
+lurking at the sides in the sheltered corners under the bushes. From
+scene to scene you follow on, delighted and expectant, until the night
+suddenly drops its veil, and then you will be lucky if you can find your
+way home in the dark!
+
+Yes, it is all very good, this exploration of new streams. But, for my
+part, I like still better to go back to a familiar little river, and
+fish or dream along the banks where I have dreamed and fished before. I
+know every bend and curve: the sharp turn where the water runs under the
+roots of the old hemlock-tree; the snaky glen, where the alders stretch
+their arms far out across the stream; the meadow reach, where the trout
+are fat and silvery, and will only rise about sunrise or sundown, unless
+the day is cloudy; the Naiad's Elbow, where the brook rounds itself,
+smooth and dimpled, to embrace a cluster of pink laurel-bushes. All
+these I know; yes, and almost every current and eddy and backwater I
+know long before I come to it. I remember where I caught the big trout
+the first year I came to the stream; and where I lost a bigger one. I
+remember the pool where there were plenty of good fish last year, and
+wonder whether they are there now.
+
+Better things than these I remember: the companions with whom I have
+followed the stream in days long past; the rendezvous with a comrade at
+the place where the rustic bridge crosses the brook; the hours of sweet
+converse beside the friendship-fire; the meeting at twilight with my
+lady Graygown and the children, who have come down by the wood-road to
+walk home with me.
+
+Surely it is pleasant to follow an old stream. Flowers grow along its
+banks which are not to be found anywhere else in the wide world. "There
+is rosemary, that 's for remembrance; and there is pansies, that 's for
+thoughts!"
+
+One May evening, a couple of years since, I was angling in the
+Swiftwater, and came upon Joseph Jefferson, stretched out on a large
+rock in midstream, and casting the fly down a long pool. He had passed
+the threescore years and ten, but he was as eager and as happy as a boy
+in his fishing.
+
+"You here!" I cried. "What good fortune brought you into these waters?"
+
+"Ah," he answered, "I fished this brook forty-five years ago. It was in
+the Paradise Valley that I first thought of Rip Van Winkle. I wanted to
+come back again for the sake of old times."
+
+But what has all this to do with an open fire? I will tell you. It is
+at the places along the stream, where the little flames of love and
+friendship have been kindled in bygone days, that the past returns most
+vividly. These are the altars of remembrance.
+
+It is strange how long a small fire will leave its mark. The charred
+sticks, the black coals, do not decay easily. If they lie well up the
+hank, out of reach of the spring floods, they will stay there for years.
+If you have chanced to build a rough fireplace of stones from the brook,
+it seems almost as if it would last forever.
+
+There is a mossy knoll beneath a great butternut-tree on the Swiftwater
+where such a fireplace was built four years ago; and whenever I come to
+that place now I lay the rod aside, and sit down for a little while by
+the fast-flowing water, and remember.
+
+This is what I see: A man wading up the stream, with a creel over his
+shoulder, and perhaps a dozen trout in it; two little lads in gray
+corduroys running down the path through the woods to meet him, one
+carrying a frying-pan and a kettle, the other with a basket of lunch on
+his arm. Then I see the bright flames leaping up in the fireplace, and
+hear the trout sizzling in the pan, and smell the appetizing odour. Now
+I see the lads coming back across the foot-bridge that spans the stream,
+with a bottle of milk from the nearest farmhouse. They are laughing
+and teetering as they balance along the single plank. Now the table is
+spread on the moss. How good the lunch tastes! Never were there such
+pink-fleshed trout, such crisp and savoury slices of broiled bacon.
+Douglas, (the beloved doll that the younger lad shamefacedly brings
+out from the pocket of his jacket,) must certainly have some of it. And
+after the lunch is finished, and the bird's portion has been scattered
+on the moss, we creep carefully on our hands and knees to the edge
+of the brook, and look over the bank at the big trout that is poising
+himself in the amber water. We have tried a dozen times to catch him,
+but never succeeded. The next time, perhaps--
+
+Well, the fireplace is still standing. The butternut-tree spreads its
+broad branches above the stream. The violets and the bishop's-caps and
+the wild anemones are sprinkled over the banks. The yellow-throat
+and the water-thrush and the vireos still sing the same tunes in the
+thicket. And the elder of the two lads often comes back with me to that
+pleasant place and shares my fisherman's luck beside the Swiftwater.
+
+But the younger lad?
+
+Ah, my little Barney, you have gone to follow a new stream,--clear as
+crystal,--flowing through fields of wonderful flowers that never fade.
+It is a strange river to Teddy and me; strange and very far away. Some
+day we shall see it with you; and you will teach us the names of those
+blossoms that do not wither. But till then, little Barney, the other
+lad and I will follow the old stream that flows by the woodland
+fireplace,--your altar.
+
+Rue grows here. Yes, there is plenty of rue. But there is also
+rosemary, that 's for remembrance! And close beside it I see a little
+heart's-ease.
+
+
+
+
+A SLUMBER SONG FOR THE FISHERMAN'S CHILD
+
+
+          Furl your sail, my little boatie;
+              Here 's the haven, still and deep,
+          Where the dreaming tides, in-streaming,
+                   Up the channel creep.
+          See, the sunset breeze is dying;
+          Hark, the plover, landward flying,
+          Softly down the twilight crying;
+              Come to anchor, little boatie,
+                  In the port of Sleep.
+
+          Far away, my little boatie,
+              Roaring waves are white with foam;
+          Ships are striving, onward driving,
+                  Day and night they roam.
+          Father 's at the deep-sea trawling,
+          In the darkness, rowing, hauling,
+          While the hungry winds are calling,--
+             God protect him, little boatie,
+                  Bring him safely home!
+
+          Not for you, my little boatie,
+              Is the wide and weary sea;
+          You 're too slender, and too tender,
+                  You must rest with me.
+          All day long you have been straying
+          Up and down the shore and playing;
+          Come to port, make no delaying!
+              Day is over, little boatie,
+                  Night falls suddenly.
+
+          Furl your sail, my little boatie;
+              Fold your wings, my tired dove.
+          Dews are sprinkling, stars are twinkling
+                  Drowsily above.
+          Cease from sailing, cease from rowing;
+          Rock upon the dream-tide, knowing
+          Safely o'er your rest are glowing,
+              All the night, my little boatie,
+                  Harbour-lights of love.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fisherman's Luck, by Henry van Dyke
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+Project Gutenberg's Etext of Fisherman's Luck, by Henry van Dyke
+#3 in our series by Henry van Dyke
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+Fisherman's Luck
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+August, 1997  [Etext #1139]
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+
+
+
+FISHERMAN'S LUCK AND SOME OTHER UNCERTAIN THINGS
+
+by Henry van Dyke
+
+
+"Now I conclude that not only in Physicke, but likewise in sundry
+more certaine arts, fortune hath great share in them."
+M. DE MONTAIGNE: Divers Events.
+
+
+
+DEDICATION TO MY LADY GRAYGOWN
+
+
+Here is the basket; I bring it home to you.  There are no great fish
+in it.  But perhaps there may be one or two little ones which will
+be to your taste.  And there are a few shining pebbles from the bed
+of the brook, and ferns from the cool, green woods, and wild flowers
+from the places that you remember.  I would fain console you, if I
+could, for the hardship of having married an angler: a man who
+relapses into his mania with the return of every spring, and never
+sees a little river without wishing to fish in it.  But after all,
+we have had good times together as we have followed the stream of
+life towards the sea.  And we have passed through the dark days
+without losing heart, because we were comrades.  So let this book
+tell you one thing that is certain.  In all the life of your
+fisherman the best piece of luck is just YOU.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   I.  Fisherman's Luck
+
+  II.  The Thrilling Moment
+
+ III.  Talkability
+
+  IV.  A Wild Strawberry
+
+   V.  Lovers and Landscape
+
+  VI.  A Fatal Success
+
+ VII.  Fishing in Books
+
+VIII.  A Norwegian Honeymoon
+
+  IX.  Who Owns the Mountains?
+
+   X.  A Lazy, Idle Brook
+
+  XI.  The Open Fire
+
+ XII.  A Slumber Song
+
+
+
+FISHERMAN'S LUCK
+
+
+Has it ever fallen in your way to notice the quality of the
+greetings that belong to certain occupations?
+
+There is something about these salutations in kind which is
+singularly taking and grateful to the ear.  They are as much better
+than an ordinary "good day" or a flat "how are you?" as a folk-song
+of Scotland or the Tyrol is better than the futile love-ditty of the
+drawing-room.  They have a spicy and rememberable flavour.  They
+speak to the imagination and point the way to treasure-trove.
+
+There is a touch of dignity in them, too, for all they are so free
+and easy--the dignity of independence, the native spirit of one who
+takes for granted that his mode of living has a right to make its
+own forms of speech.  I admire a man who does not hesitate to salute
+the world in the dialect of his calling.
+
+How salty and stimulating, for example, is the sailorman's hail of
+"Ship ahoy!"  It is like a breeze laden with briny odours and a
+pleasant dash of spray.  The miners in some parts of Germany have a
+good greeting for their dusky trade.  They cry to one who is going
+down the shaft, "Gluck auf!"  All the perils of an underground
+adventure and all the joys of seeing the sun again are compressed
+into a word.  Even the trivial salutation which the telephone has
+lately created and claimed for its peculiar use--"Hello, hello"--
+seems to me to have a kind of fitness and fascination.  It is like a
+thoroughbred bulldog, ugly enough to be attractive.  There is a
+lively, concentrated, electric air about it.  It makes courtesy wait
+upon dispatch, and reminds us that we live in an age when it is
+necessary to be wide awake.
+
+I have often wished that every human employment might evolve its own
+appropriate greeting.  Some of them would be queer, no doubt; but at
+least they would be an improvement on the wearisome iteration of
+"Good-evening" and "Good-morning," and the monotonous inquiry, "How
+do you do?"--a question so meaningless that it seldom tarries for an
+answer.  Under the new and more natural system of etiquette, when
+you passed the time of day with a man you would know his business,
+and the salutations of the market-place would be full of interest.
+
+As for my chosen pursuit of angling (which I follow with diligence
+when not interrupted by less important concerns), I rejoice with
+every true fisherman that it has a greeting all its own and of a
+most honourable antiquity.  There is no written record of its
+origin.  But it is quite certain that since the days after the
+Flood, when Deucalion
+
+
+     "Did first this art invent
+      Of angling, and his people taught the same,"
+
+
+two honest and good-natured anglers have never met each other by the
+way without crying out, "What luck?"
+
+Here, indeed, is an epitome of the gentle art.  Here is the spirit
+of it embodied in a word and paying its respects to you with its
+native accent.  Here you see its secret charms unconsciously
+disclosed.  The attraction of angling for all the ages of man, from
+the cradle to the grave, lies in its uncertainty.  'Tis an affair of
+luck.
+
+No amount of preparation in the matter of rods and lines and hooks
+and lures and nets and creels can change its essential character.
+No excellence of skill in casting the delusive fly or adjusting the
+tempting bait upon the hook can make the result secure.  You may
+reduce the chances, but you cannot eliminate them.  There are a
+thousand points at which fortune may intervene.  The state of the
+weather, the height of the water, the appetite of the fish, the
+presence or absence of other anglers--all these indeterminable
+elements enter into the reckoning of your success.  There is no
+combination of stars in the firmament by which you can forecast the
+piscatorial future.  When you go a-fishing, you just take your
+chances; you offer yourself as a candidate for anything that may be
+going; you try your luck.
+
+There are certain days that are favourites among anglers, who regard
+them as propitious for the sport.  I know a man who believes that
+the fish always rise better on Sunday than on any other day in the
+week.  He complains bitterly of this supposed fact, because his
+religious scruples will not allow him to take advantage of it.  He
+confesses that he has sometimes thought seriously of joining the
+Seventh-Day Baptists.
+
+Among the Pennsylvania Dutch, in the Alleghany Mountains, I have
+found a curious tradition that Ascension Day is the luckiest in the
+year for fishing.  On that morning the district school is apt to be
+thinly attended, and you must be on the stream very early if you do
+not wish to find wet footprints on the stones ahead of you.
+
+But in fact, all these superstitions about fortunate days are idle
+and presumptuous.  If there were such days in the calendar, a kind
+and firm Providence would never permit the race of man to discover
+them.  It would rob life of one of its principal attractions, and
+make fishing altogether too easy to be interesting.
+
+Fisherman's luck is so notorious that it has passed into a proverb.
+But the fault with that familiar saying is that it is too short and
+too narrow to cover half the variations of the angler's possible
+experience.  For if his luck should be bad, there is no portion of
+his anatomy, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet,
+that may not be thoroughly wet.  But if it should be good, he may
+receive an unearned blessing of abundance not only in his basket,
+but also in his head and his heart, his memory and his fancy.  He
+may come home from some obscure, ill-named, lovely stream--some Dry
+Brook, or Southwest Branch of Smith's Run--with a creel full of
+trout, and a mind full of grateful recollections of flowers that
+seemed to bloom for his sake, and birds that sang a new, sweet,
+friendly message to his tired soul.  He may climb down to "Tommy's
+Rock" below the cliffs at Newport (as I have done many a day with my
+lady Greygown), and, all unnoticed by the idle, weary promenaders in
+the path of fashion, haul in a basketful of blackfish, and at the
+same time look out across the shining sapphire waters and inherit a
+wondrous good fortune of dreams--
+
+
+     "Have glimpses that will make him less forlorn;
+      Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
+      Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
+
+
+But all this, you must remember, depends upon something secret and
+incalculable, something that we can neither command nor predict.  It
+is an affair of gift, not of wages.  Fish (and the other good things
+which are like sauce to the catching of them) cast no shadow before.
+Water is the emblem of instability.  No one can tell what he shall
+draw out of it until he has taken in his line.  Herein are found the
+true charm and profit of angling for all persons of a pure and
+childlike mind.
+
+Look at those two venerable gentlemen floating in a skiff upon the
+clear waters of Lake George.  One of them is a successful statesman,
+an ex-President of the United States, a lawyer versed in all the
+curious eccentricities of the "lawless science of the law."  The
+other is a learned doctor of medicine, able to give a name to all
+diseases from which men have imagined that they suffered, and to
+invent new ones for those who are tired of vulgar maladies.  But all
+their learning is forgotten, their cares and controversies are laid
+aside, in "innocuous desuetude."  The Summer School of Sociology is
+assembled.  The Medical Congress is in session.
+
+But they care not--no, not so much as the value of a single live
+bait.  The sun shines upon them with a fervent heat, but it irks
+them not.  The rain descends, and the winds blow and beat upon them,
+but they are unmoved.  They are securely anchored here in the lee of
+Sabbath-Day Point.
+
+What enchantment binds them to that inconsiderable spot?  What magic
+fixes their eyes upon the point of a fishing-rod, as if it were the
+finger of destiny?  It is the enchantment of uncertainty: the same
+natural magic that draws the little suburban boys in the spring of
+the year, with their strings and pin-hooks, around the shallow ponds
+where dace and redfins hide; the same irresistible charm that fixes
+a row of city gamins, like ragged and disreputable fish-crows, on
+the end of a pier where blear-eyed flounders sometimes lurk in the
+muddy water.  Let the philosopher explain it as he will.  Let the
+moralist reprehend it as he chooses.  There is nothing that attracts
+human nature more powerfully than the sport of tempting the unknown
+with a fishing-line.
+
+Those ancient anglers have set out upon an exodus from the tedious
+realm of the definite, the fixed, the must-certainly-come-to-pass.
+They are on a holiday in the free country of peradventure.  They do
+not know at this moment whether the next turn of Fortune's reel will
+bring up a perch or a pickerel, a sunfish or a black bass.  It may
+be a hideous catfish or a squirming eel, or it may be a lake-trout,
+the grand prize in the Lake George lottery.  There they sit, those
+gray-haired lads, full of hope, yet equally prepared for
+resignation; taking no thought for the morrow, and ready to make the
+best of to-day; harmless and happy players at the best of all games
+of chance.
+
+"In other words," I hear some severe and sour-complexioned reader
+say, "in plain language, they are a pair of old gamblers."
+
+Yes, if it pleases you to call honest men by a bad name.  But they
+risk nothing that is not their own; and if they lose, they are not
+impoverished.  They desire nothing that belongs to other men; and if
+they win, no one is robbed.  If all gambling were like that, it
+would be difficult to see the harm in it.  Indeed, a daring moralist
+might even assert, and prove by argument, that so innocent a delight
+in the taking of chances is an aid to virtue.
+
+Do you remember Martin Luther's reasoning on the subject of
+"excellent large pike"?  He maintains that God would never have
+created them so good to the taste, if He had not meant them to be
+eaten.  And for the same reason I conclude that this world would
+never have been left so full of uncertainties, nor human nature
+framed so as to find a peculiar joy and exhilaration in meeting them
+bravely and cheerfully, if it had not been divinely intended that
+most of our amusement and much of our education should come from
+this source.
+
+"Chance" is a disreputable word, I know.  It is supposed by many
+pious persons to be improper and almost blasphemous to use it.  But
+I am not one of those who share this verbal prejudice.  I am
+inclined rather to believe that it is a good word to which a bad
+reputation has been given.  I feel grateful to that admirable
+"psychologist who writes like a novelist," Mr. William James, for
+his brilliant defence of it.  For what does it mean, after all, but
+that some things happen in a certain way which might have happened
+in another way?  Where is the immorality, the irreverence, the
+atheism in such a supposition?  Certainly God must be competent to
+govern a world in which there are possibilities of various kinds,
+just as well as one in which every event is inevitably determined
+beforehand.  St. Peter and the other fishermen-disciples on the Lake
+of Galilee were perfectly free to cast their net on either side of
+the ship.  So far as they could see, so far as any one could see, it
+was a matter of chance where they chose to cast it.  But it was not
+until they let it down, at the Master's word, on the right side that
+they had good luck.  And not the least element of their joy in the
+draft of fishes was that it brought a change of fortune.
+
+Leave the metaphysics of the question on the table for the present.
+As a matter of fact, it is plain that our human nature is adapted to
+conditions variable, undetermined, and hidden from our view.  We are
+not fitted to live in a world where a + b always equals c, and there
+is nothing more to follow.  The interest of life's equation arrives
+with the appearance of x, the unknown quantity.  A settled,
+unchangeable, clearly foreseeable order of things does not suit our
+constitution.  It tends to melancholy and a fatty heart.  Creatures
+of habit we are undoubtedly; but it is one of our most fixed habits
+to be fond of variety.  The man who is never surprised does not know
+the taste of happiness, and unless the unexpected sometimes happens
+to us, we are most grievously disappointed.
+
+Much of the tediousness of highly civilized life comes from its
+smoothness and regularity.  To-day is like yesterday, and we think
+that we can predict to-morrow.  Of course we cannot really do so.
+The chances are still there.  But we have covered them up so deeply
+with the artificialities of life that we lose sight of them.  It
+seems as if everything in our neat little world were arranged, and
+provided for, and reasonably sure to come to pass.  The best way of
+escape from this TAEDIUM VITAE is through a recreation like angling,
+not only because it is so evidently a matter of luck, but also
+because it tempts us into a wilder, freer life.  It leads almost
+inevitably to camping out, which is a wholesome and sanitary
+imprudence.
+
+It is curious and pleasant, to my apprehension, to observe how many
+people in New England, one of whose States is called "the land of
+Steady Habits," are sensible of the joy of changing them,--out of
+doors.  These good folk turn out from their comfortable farm-houses
+and their snug suburban cottages to go a-gypsying for a fortnight
+among the mountains or beside the sea.  You see their white tents
+gleaming from the pine-groves around the little lakes, and catch
+glimpses of their bathing-clothes drying in the sun on the wiry
+grass that fringes the sand-dunes.  Happy fugitives from the bondage
+of routine!  They have found out that a long journey is not
+necessary to a good vacation.  You may reach the Forest of Arden in
+a buckboard.  The Fortunate Isles are within sailing distance in a
+dory.  And a voyage on the river Pactolus is open to any one who can
+paddle a canoe.
+
+I was talking--or rather listening--with a barber, the other day, in
+the sleepy old town of Rivermouth.  He told me, in one of those easy
+confidences which seem to make the razor run more smoothly, that it
+had been the custom of his family, for some twenty years past, to
+forsake their commodious dwelling on Anchor Street every summer, and
+emigrate six miles, in a wagon to Wallis Sands, where they spent the
+month of August very merrily under canvas.  Here was a sensible
+household for you!  They did not feel bound to waste a year's income
+on a four weeks' holiday.  They were not of those foolish folk who
+run across the sea, carefully carrying with them the same tiresome
+mind that worried them at home.  They got a change of air by making
+an alteration of life.  They escaped from the land of Egypt by
+stepping out into the wilderness and going a-fishing.
+
+The people who always live in houses, and sleep on beds, and walk on
+pavements, and buy their food from butchers and bakers and grocers,
+are not the most blessed inhabitants of this wide and various earth.
+The circumstances of their existence are too mathematical and secure
+for perfect contentment.  They live at second or third hand.  They
+are boarders in the world.  Everything is done for them by somebody
+else.
+
+It is almost impossible for anything very interesting to happen to
+them.  They must get their excitement out of the newspapers, reading
+of the hairbreadth escapes and moving accidents that befall people
+in real life.  What do these tame ducks really know of the adventure
+of living?  If the weather is bad, they are snugly housed.  If it is
+cold, there is a furnace in the cellar.  If they are hungry, the
+shops are near at hand.  It is all as dull, flat, stale, and
+unprofitable as adding up a column of figures.  They might as well
+be brought up in an incubator.
+
+But when man abides in tents, after the manner of the early
+patriarchs, the face of the world is renewed.  The vagaries of the
+clouds become significant.  You watch the sky with a lover's look,
+eager to know whether it will smile or frown.  When you lie at night
+upon your bed of boughs and hear the rain pattering on the canvas
+close above your head, you wonder whether it is a long storm or only
+a shower.
+
+The rising wind shakes the tent-flaps.  Are the pegs well driven
+down and the cords firmly fastened?  You fall asleep again and wake
+later, to hear the rain drumming still more loudly on the tight
+cloth, and the big breeze snoring through the forest, and the waves
+plunging along the beach.  A stormy day?  Well, you must cut plenty
+of wood and keep the camp-fire glowing, for it will be hard to start
+it up again, if you let it get too low.  There is little use in
+fishing or hunting in such a storm.  But there is plenty to do in
+the camp: guns to be cleaned, tackle to be put in order, clothes to
+be mended, a good story of adventure to be read, a belated letter to
+be written to some poor wretch in a summer hotel, a game of hearts
+or cribbage to be played, or a hunting-trip to be planned for the
+return of fair weather.  The tent is perfectly dry.  A little trench
+dug around it carries off the surplus water, and luckily it is
+pitched with the side to the lake, so that you get the pleasant heat
+of the fire without the unendurable smoke.  Cooking in the rain has
+its disadvantages.  But how good the supper tastes when it is served
+up on a tin plate, with an empty box for a table and a roll of
+blankets at the foot of the bed for a seat!
+
+A day, two days, three days, the storm may continue, according to
+your luck.  I have been out in the woods for a fortnight without a
+drop of rain or a sign of dust.  Again, I have tented on the shore
+of a big lake for a week, waiting for an obstinate tempest to pass
+by.
+
+Look now, just at nightfall: is there not a little lifting and
+breaking of the clouds in the west, a little shifting of the wind
+toward a better quarter?  You go to bed with cheerful hopes.  A
+dozen times in the darkness you are half awake, and listening
+drowsily to the sounds of the storm.  Are they waxing or waning?  Is
+that louder pattering a new burst of rain, or is it only the
+plumping of the big drops as they are shaken from the trees?  See,
+the dawn has come, and the gray light glimmers through the canvas.
+In a little while you will know your fate.
+
+Look!  There is a patch of bright yellow radiance on the peak of the
+tent.  The shadow of a leaf dances over it.  The sun must be
+shining.  Good luck! and up with you, for it is a glorious morning.
+
+The woods are glistening as fresh and fair as if they had been new-
+created overnight.  The water sparkles, and tiny waves are dancing
+and splashing all along the shore.  Scarlet berries of the mountain-
+ash hang around the lake.  A pair of kingfishers dart back and forth
+across the bay, in flashes of living blue.  A black eagle swings
+silently around his circle, far up in the cloudless sky.  The air is
+full of pleasant sounds, but there is no noise.  The world is full
+of joyful life, but there is no crowd and no confusion.  There is no
+factory chimney to darken the day with its smoke, no trolley-car to
+split the silence with its shriek and smite the indignant ear with
+the clanging of its impudent bell.  No lumberman's axe has robbed
+the encircling forests of their glory of great trees.  No fires have
+swept over the hills and left behind them the desolation of a
+bristly landscape.  All is fresh and sweet, calm and clear and
+bright.
+
+'Twas rather a rude jest of Nature, that tempest of yesterday.  But
+if you have taken it in good part, you are all the more ready for
+her caressing mood to-day.  And now you must be off to get your
+dinner--not to order it at a shop, but to look for it in the woods
+and waters.  You are ready to do your best with rod or gun.  You
+will use all the skill you have as hunter or fisherman.  But what
+you shall find, and whether you shall subsist on bacon and biscuit,
+or feast on trout and partridges, is, after all, a matter of luck.
+
+I profess that it appears to me not only pleasant, but also
+salutary, to be in this condition.  It brings us home to the plain
+realities of life; it teaches us that a man ought to work before he
+eats; it reminds us that, after he has done all he can, he must
+still rely upon a mysterious bounty for his daily bread.  It says to
+us, in homely and familiar words, that life was meant to be
+uncertain, that no man can tell what a day will bring forth, and
+that it is the part of wisdom to be prepared for disappointments and
+grateful for all kinds of small mercies.
+
+There is a story in that fragrant book, THE LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST.
+FRANCIS, which I wish to transcribe here, without tying a moral to
+it, lest any one should accuse me of preaching.
+
+
+"Hence [says the quaint old chronicler], having assigned to his
+companions the other parts of the world, St. Francis, taking Brother
+Maximus as his comrade, set forth toward the province of France.
+And coming one day to a certain town, and being very hungry, they
+begged their bread as they went, according to the rule of their
+order, for the love of God.  And St. Francis went through one
+quarter of the town, and Brother Maximus through another.  But
+forasmuch as St. Francis was a man mean and low of stature, and
+hence was reputed a vile beggar by such as knew him not, he only
+received a few scanty crusts and mouthfuls of dry bread.  But to
+Brother Maximus, who was large and well favoured, were given good
+pieces and big, and an abundance of bread, yea, whole loaves.
+Having thus begged, they met together without the town to eat, at a
+place where there was a clear spring and a fair large stone, upon
+which each spread forth the gifts that he had received.  And St.
+Francis, seeing that the pieces of bread begged by Brother Maximus
+were bigger and better than his own, rejoiced greatly, saying, 'Oh,
+Brother Maximus, we are not worthy of so great a treasure.'  As he
+repeated these words many times, Brother Maximus made answer:
+'Father, how can you talk of treasures when there is such great
+poverty and such lack of all things needful?  Here is neither napkin
+nor knife, neither board nor trencher, neither house nor table,
+neither man-servant nor maid-servant.'  St. Francis replied: 'And
+this is what I reckon a great treasure, where naught is made ready
+by human industry, but all that is here is prepared by Divine
+Providence, as is plainly set forth in the bread which we have
+begged, in the table of fair stone, and in the spring of clear
+water.  And therefore I would that we should pray to God that He
+teach us with all our hearts to love the treasure of holy poverty,
+which is so noble a thing, and whose servant is God the Lord.'"
+
+
+I know of but one fairer description of a repast in the open air;
+and that is where we are told how certain poor fishermen, coming in
+very weary after a night of toil (and one of them very wet after
+swimming ashore), found their Master standing on the bank of the
+lake waiting for them.  But it seems that he must have been busy in
+their behalf while he was waiting; for there was a bright fire of
+coals burning on the shore, and a goodly fish broiling thereon, and
+bread to eat with it.  And when the Master had asked them about
+their fishing, he said, "Come, now, and get your breakfast."  So
+they sat down around the fire, and with his own hands he served them
+with the bread and the fish.
+
+Of all the banquets that have ever been given upon earth, that is
+the one in which I would rather have had a share.
+
+But it is now time that we should return to our fishing.  And let us
+observe with gratitude that almost all of the pleasures that are
+connected with this pursuit--its accompaniments and variations,
+which run along with the tune and weave an embroidery of delight
+around it--have an accidental and gratuitous quality about them.
+They are not to be counted upon beforehand.  They are like something
+that is thrown into a purchase by a generous and open-handed dealer,
+to make us pleased with our bargain and inclined to come back to the
+same shop.
+
+If I knew, for example, before setting out for a day on the brook,
+precisely what birds I should see, and what pretty little scenes in
+the drama of woodland life were to be enacted before my eyes, the
+expedition would lose more than half its charm.  But, in fact, it is
+almost entirely a matter of luck, and that is why it never grows
+tiresome.
+
+The ornithologist knows pretty well where to look for the birds, and
+he goes directly to the places where he can find them, and proceeds
+to study them intelligently and systematically.  But the angler who
+idles down the stream takes them as they come, and all his
+observations have a flavour of surprise in them.
+
+He hears a familiar song,--one that he has often heard at a
+distance, but never identified,--a loud, cheery, rustic cadence
+sounding from a low pine-tree close beside him.  He looks up
+carefully through the needles and discovers a hooded warbler, a
+tiny, restless creature, dressed in green and yellow, with two white
+feathers in its tail, like the ends of a sash, and a glossy little
+black bonnet drawn closely about its golden head.  He will never
+forget that song again.  It will make the woods seem homelike to
+him, many a time, as he hears it ringing through the afternoon, like
+the call of a small country girl playing at hide-and-seek: "See ME;
+here I BE."
+
+Another day he sits down on a mossy log beside a cold, trickling
+spring to eat his lunch.  It has been a barren day for birds.
+Perhaps he has fallen into the fault of pursuing his sport too
+intensely, and tramped along the stream looking for nothing but
+fish.  Perhaps this part of the grove has really been deserted by
+its feathered inhabitants, scared away by a prowling hawk or driven
+out by nest-hunters.  But now, without notice, the luck changes.  A
+surprise-party of redstarts breaks into full play around him.  All
+through the dark-green shadow of the hemlocks they flash like little
+candles--CANDELITAS, the Cubans call them.  Their brilliant markings
+of orange and black, and their fluttering, airy, graceful movements,
+make them most welcome visitors.  There is no bird in the bush
+easier to recognize or pleasanter to watch.  They run along the
+branches and dart and tumble through the air in fearless chase of
+invisible flies and moths.  All the time they keep unfolding and
+furling their rounded tails, spreading them out and waving them and
+closing them suddenly, just as the Cuban girls manage their fans.
+In fact, the redstarts are the tiny fantail pigeons of the forest.
+
+There are other things about the birds, besides their musical
+talents and their good looks, that the fisherman has a chance to
+observe on his lucky days.  He may sea something of their courage
+and their devotion to their young.
+
+I suppose a bird is the bravest creature that lives, in spite of its
+natural timidity.  From which we may learn that true courage is not
+incompatible with nervousness, and that heroism does not mean the
+absence of fear, but the conquest of it.  Who does not remember the
+first time that he ever came upon a hen-partridge with her brood, as
+he was strolling through the woods in June?  How splendidly the old
+bird forgets herself in her efforts to defend and hide her young!
+
+Smaller birds are no less daring.  One evening last summer I was
+walking up the Ristigouche from Camp Harmony to fish for salmon at
+Mowett's Rock, where my canoe was waiting for me.  As I stepped out
+from a thicket on to the shingly bank of the river, a spotted
+sandpiper teetered along before me, followed by three young ones.
+Frightened at first, the mother flew out a few feet over the water.
+But the piperlings could not fly, having no feathers; and they crept
+under a crooked log.  I rolled the log over very gently and took one
+of the cowering creatures into my hand--a tiny, palpitating scrap of
+life, covered with soft gray down, and peeping shrilly, like a
+Liliputian chicken.  And now the mother was transformed.  Her fear
+was changed into fury.  She was a bully, a fighter, an Amazon in
+feathers.  She flew at me with loud cries, dashing herself almost
+into my face.  I was a tyrant, a robber, a kidnapper, and she called
+heaven to witness that she would never give up her offspring without
+a struggle.  Then she changed her tactics and appealed to my baser
+passions.  She fell to the ground and fluttered around me as if her
+wing were broken.  "Look!" she seemed to say, "I am bigger than that
+poor little baby.  If you must eat something, eat me!  My wing is
+lame.  I can't fly.  You can easily catch me.  Let that little bird
+go!"  And so I did; and the whole family disappeared in the bushes
+as if by magic.  I wondered whether the mother was saying to
+herself, after the manner of her sex, that men are stupid things,
+after all, and no match for the cleverness of a female who stoops to
+deception in a righteous cause.
+
+Now, that trivial experience was what I call a piece of good luck--
+for me, and, in the event, for the sandpiper.  But it is doubtful
+whether it would be quite so fresh and pleasant in the remembrance,
+if it had not also fallen to my lot to take two uncommonly good
+salmon on that same evening, in a dry season.
+
+Never believe a fisherman when he tells you that he does not care
+about the fish he catches.  He may say that he angles only for the
+pleasure of being out-of-doors, and that he is just as well
+contented when he takes nothing as when he makes a good catch.  He
+may think so, but it is not true.  He is not telling a deliberate
+falsehood.  He is only assuming an unconscious pose, and indulging
+in a delicate bit of self-flattery.  Even if it were true, it would
+not be at all to his credit.
+
+Watch him on that lucky day when he comes home with a full basket of
+trout on his shoulder, or a quartette of silver salmon covered with
+green branches in the bottom of the canoe.  His face is broader than
+it was when he went out, and there is a sparkle of triumph in his
+eye.  "It is naught, it is naught," he says, in modest depreciation
+of his triumph.  But you shall see that he lingers fondly about the
+place where the fish are displayed upon the grass, and does not fail
+to look carefully at the scales when they are weighed, and has an
+attentive ear for the comments of admiring spectators.  You shall
+find, moreover, that he is not unwilling to narrate the story of the
+capture--how the big fish rose short, four times, to four different
+flies, and finally took a small Black Dose, and played all over the
+pool, and ran down a terribly stiff rapid to the next pool below,
+and sulked for twenty minutes, and had to be stirred up with stones,
+and made such a long fight that, when he came in at last, the hold
+of the hook was almost worn through, and it fell out of his mouth as
+he touched the shore.  Listen to this tale as it is told, with
+endless variations, by every man who has brought home a fine fish,
+and you will perceive that the fisherman does care for his luck,
+after all.
+
+And why not?  I am no friend to the people who receive the bounties
+of Providence without visible gratitude.  When the sixpence falls
+into your hat, you may laugh.  When the messenger of an unexpected
+blessing takes you by the hand and lifts you up and bids you walk,
+you may leap and run and sing for joy, even as the lame man, whom
+St. Peter healed, skipped piously and rejoiced aloud as he passed
+through the Beautiful Gate of the Temple.  There is no virtue in
+solemn indifference.  Joy is just as much a duty as beneficence is.
+Thankfulness is the other side of mercy.
+
+When you have good luck in anything, you ought to be glad.  Indeed,
+if you are not glad, you are not really lucky.
+
+But boasting and self-glorification I would have excluded, and most
+of all from the behaviour of the angler.  He, more than other men,
+is dependent for his success upon the favour of an unseen
+benefactor.  Let his skill and industry be never so great, he can do
+nothing unless LA BONNE CHANCE comes to him.
+
+I was once fishing on a fair little river, the P'tit Saguenay, with
+two excellent anglers and pleasant companions, H. E. G---- and C. S.
+D----.  They had done all that was humanly possible to secure good
+sport.  The stream had been well preserved.  They had boxes full of
+beautiful flies, and casting-lines imported from England, and a rod
+for every fish in the river.  But the weather was "dour," and the
+water "drumly," and every day the lumbermen sent a "drive" of ten
+thousand spruce logs rushing down the flooded stream.  For three
+days we had not seen a salmon, and on the fourth, despairing, we
+went down to angle for sea-trout in the tide of the greater
+Saguenay.  There, in the salt water, where men say the salmon never
+take the fly, H. E. G----, fishing with a small trout-rod, a poor,
+short line, and an ancient red ibis of the common kind, rose and
+hooked a lordly salmon of at least five-and-thirty pounds.  Was not
+this pure luck?
+
+Pride is surely the most unbecoming of all vices in a fisherman.
+For though intelligence and practice and patience and genius, and
+many other noble things which modesty forbids him to mention, enter
+into his pastime, so that it is, as Izaak Walton has firmly
+maintained, an art; yet, because fortune still plays a controlling
+hand in the game, its net results should never be spoken of with a
+haughty and vain spirit.  Let not the angler imitate Timoleon, who
+boasted of his luck and lost it.  It is tempting Providence to print
+the record of your wonderful catches in the sporting newspapers; or
+at least, if it must be done, there should stand at the head of the
+column some humble, thankful motto, like "NON NOBIS, DOMINE."  Even
+Father Izaak, when he has a fish on his line, says, with a due sense
+of human limitations, "There is a trout now, and a good one too, IF
+I CAN BUT HOLD HIM!"
+
+This reminds me that we left H. E. G----, a few sentences back,
+playing his unexpected salmon, on a trout-rod, in the Saguenay.
+Four times that great fish leaped into the air; twice he suffered
+the pliant reed to guide him toward the shore, and twice ran out
+again to deeper water.  Then his spirit awoke within him: he bent
+the rod like a willow wand, dashed toward the middle of the river,
+broke the line as if it had been pack-thread, and sailed
+triumphantly away to join the white porpoises that were tumbling in
+the tide.  "WHE-E-EW," they said, "WHE-E-EW! PSHA-A-AW!" blowing out
+their breath in long, soft sighs as they rolled about like huge
+snowballs in the black water.  But what did H. E. G---- say?  He sat
+him quietly down upon a rock and reeled in the remnant of his line,
+uttering these remarkable and Christian words: "Those porpoises,"
+said he, "describe the situation rather mildly.  But it was good fun
+while it lasted."
+
+Again I remembered a saying of Walton: "Well, Scholar, you must
+endure worse luck sometimes, or you will never make a good angler."
+
+Or a good man, either, I am sure.  For he who knows only how to
+enjoy, and not to endure, is ill-fitted to go down the stream of
+life through such a world as this.
+
+I would not have you to suppose, gentle reader, that in discoursing
+of fisherman's luck I have in mind only those things which may be
+taken with a hook.  It is a parable of human experience.  I have
+been thinking, for instance, of Walton's life as well as of his
+angling: of the losses and sufferings that he, the firm Royalist,
+endured when the Commonwealth men came marching into London town; of
+the consoling days that were granted to him, in troublous times, on
+the banks of the Lea and the Dove and the New River, and the good
+friends that he made there, with whom he took sweet counsel in
+adversity; of the little children who played in his house for a few
+years, and then were called away into the silent land where he could
+hear their voices no longer.  I was thinking how quietly and
+peaceably he lived through it all, not complaining nor desponding,
+but trying to do his work well, whether he was keeping a shop or
+writing hooks, and seeking to prove himself an honest man and a
+cheerful companion, and never scorning to take with a thankful heart
+such small comforts and recreations as came to him.
+
+It is a plain, homely, old-fashioned meditation, reader, but not
+unprofitable.  When I talk to you of fisherman's luck, I do not
+forget that there are deeper things behind it.  I remember that what
+we call our fortunes, good or ill, are but the wise dealings and
+distributions of a Wisdom higher, and a Kindness greater, than our
+own.  And I suppose that their meaning is that we should learn, by
+all the uncertainties of our life, even the smallest, how to be
+brave and steady and temperate and hopeful, whatever comes, because
+we believe that behind it all there lies a purpose of good, and over
+it all there watches a providence of blessing.
+
+In the school of life many branches of knowledge are taught.  But
+the only philosophy that amounts to anything, after all, is just the
+secret of making friends with our luck.
+
+
+
+THE THRILLING MOMENT
+
+
+"In angling, as in all other recreations into which excitement
+enters, we have to be on our guard, so that we can at any moment
+throw a weight of self-control into the scale against misfortune;
+and happily we can study to some purpose, both to increase our
+pleasure in success and to lessen our distress caused by what goes
+ill.  It is not only in cases of great disasters, however, that the
+angler needs self-control.  He is perpetually called upon to use it
+to withstand small exasperations."--SIR EDWARD GREY: Fly-Fishing.
+
+
+Every moment of life, I suppose, is more or less of a turning-point.
+Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, thicker than
+gnats at sundown.  We walk through a cloud of chances, and if we
+were always conscious of them they would worry us almost to death.
+
+But happily our sense of uncertainty is soothed and cushioned by
+habit, so that we can live comfortably with it.  Only now and then,
+by way of special excitement, it starts up wide awake.  We perceive
+how delicately our fortune is poised and balanced on the pivot of a
+single incident.  We get a peep at the oscillating needle, and,
+because we have happened to see it tremble, we call our experience a
+crisis.
+
+The meditative angler is not exempt from these sensational periods.
+There are times when all the uncertainty of his chosen pursuit seems
+to condense itself into one big chance, and stand out before him
+like a salmon on the top wave of a rapid.  He sees that his luck
+hangs by a single strand, and he cannot tell whether it will hold or
+break.  This is his thrilling moment, and he never forgets it.
+
+Mine came to me in the autumn of 1894, on the banks of the
+Unpronounceable River, in the Province of Quebec.  It was the last
+day, of the open season for ouananiche, and we had set our hearts on
+catching some good fish to take home with us.  We walked up from the
+mouth of the river, four preposterously long and rough miles, to the
+famous fishing-pool, "LA PLACE DE PECHE A BOIVIN."  It was a noble
+day for walking; the air was clear and crisp, and all the hills
+around us were glowing with the crimson foliage of those little
+bushes which God created to make burned lands look beautiful.  The
+trail ended in a precipitous gully, down which we scrambled with
+high hopes, and fishing-rods unbroken, only to find that the river
+was in a condition which made angling absurd if not impossible.
+
+There must have been a cloud-burst among the mountains, for the
+water was coming down in flood.  The stream was bank-full, gurgling
+and eddying out among the bushes, and rushing over the shoal where
+the fish used to lie, in a brown torrent ten feet deep.  Our last
+day with the land-locked salmon seemed destined to be a failure, and
+we must wait eight months before we could have another.  There were
+three of us in the disappointment, and we shared it according to our
+temperaments.
+
+Paul virtuously resolved not to give up while there was a chance
+left, and wandered down-stream to look for an eddy where he might
+pick up a small fish.  Ferdinand, our guide, resigned himself
+without a sigh to the consolation of eating blueberries, which he
+always did with great cheerfulness.  But I, being more cast down
+than either of my comrades, sought out a convenient seat among the
+rocks, and, adapting my anatomy as well as possible to the
+irregularities of nature's upholstery, pulled from my pocket AN
+AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE DALE, and settled down to read myself
+into a Christian frame of mind.
+
+Before beginning, my eyes roved sadly over the pool once more.  It
+was but a casual glance.  It lasted only for an instant.  But in
+that fortunate fragment of time I distinctly saw the broad tail of a
+big ouananiche rise and disappear in the swift water at the very
+head of the pool.
+
+Immediately the whole aspect of affairs was changed.  Despondency
+vanished, and the river glittered with the beams of rising hope.
+
+Such is the absurd disposition of some anglers.  They never see a
+fish without believing that they can catch him; but if they see no
+fish, they are inclined to think that the river is empty and the
+world hollow.
+
+I said nothing to my companions.  It would have been unkind to
+disturb them with expectations which might never be realized.  My
+immediate duty was to get within casting distance of that salmon as
+soon as possible.
+
+The way along the shore of the pool was difficult.  The bank was
+very steep, and the rocks by the river's edge were broken and
+glibbery.  Presently I came to a sheer wall of stone, perhaps thirty
+feet high, rising directly from the deep water.
+
+There was a tiny ledge or crevice running part of the way across the
+face of this wall, and by this four-inch path I edged along, holding
+my rod in one hand, and clinging affectionately with the other to
+such clumps of grass and little bushes as I could find.  There was
+one small huckleberry plant to which I had a particular attachment.
+It was fortunately a firm little bush, and as I held fast to it I
+remembered Tennyson's poem which begins
+
+
+"Flower in the crannied wall,"
+
+
+and reflected that if I should succeed in plucking out this flower,
+"root and all," it would probably result in an even greater increase
+of knowledge than the poet contemplated.
+
+The ledge in the rock now came to an end.  But below me in the pool
+there was a sunken reef; and on this reef a long log had caught,
+with one end sticking out of the water, within jumping distance.  It
+was the only chance.  To go back would have been dangerous.  An
+angler with a large family dependent upon him for support has no
+right to incur unnecessary perils.
+
+Besides, the fish was waiting for me at the upper end of the pool!
+
+So I jumped; landed on the end of the log; felt it settle slowly
+down; ran along it like a small boy on a seesaw, and leaped off into
+shallow water just as the log rolled from the ledge and lunged out
+into the stream.
+
+It went wallowing through the pool and down the rapid like a playful
+hippopotamus.  I watched it with interest and congratulated myself
+that I was no longer embarked upon it.  On that craft a voyage down
+the Unpronounceable River would have been short but far from merry.
+The "all ashore" bell was not rung early enough.  I just got off,
+with not half a second to spare.
+
+But now all was well, for I was within reach of the fish.  A little
+scrambling over the rocks brought me to a point where I could easily
+cast over him.  He was lying in a swift, smooth, narrow channel
+between two large stones.  It was a snug resting-place, and no doubt
+he would remain there for some time.  So I took out my fly-book and
+prepared to angle for him according to the approved rules of the
+art.
+
+Nothing is more foolish in sport than the habit of precipitation.
+And yet it is a fault to which I am singularly subject.  As a boy,
+in Brooklyn, I never came in sight of the Capitoline Skating Pond,
+after a long ride in the horse-cars, without breaking into a run
+along the board walk, buckling on my skates in a furious hurry, and
+flinging myself impetuously upon the ice, as if I feared that it
+would melt away before I could reach it.  Now this, I confess, is a
+grievous defect, which advancing years have not entirely cured; and
+I found it necessary to take myself firmly, as it were, by the
+mental coat-collar, and resolve not to spoil the chance of catching
+the only ouananiche in the Unpronounceable River by undue haste in
+fishing for him.
+
+I carefully tested a brand-new leader, and attached it to the line
+with great deliberation and the proper knot.  Then I gave my whole
+mind to the important question of a wise selection of flies.
+
+It is astonishing how much time and mental anxiety a man can spend
+on an apparently simple question like this.  When you are buying
+flies in a shop it seems as if you never had half enough.  You keep
+on picking out a half-dozen of each new variety as fast as the
+enticing salesman shows them to you.  You stroll through the streets
+of Montreal or Quebec and drop in at every fishing-tackle dealer's
+to see whether you can find a few more good flies.  Then, when you
+come to look over your collection at the critical moment on the bank
+of a stream, it seems as if you had ten times too many.  And, spite
+of all, the precise fly that you need is not there.
+
+You select a couple that you think fairly good, lay them down beside
+you in the grass, and go on looking through the book for something
+better.  Failing to satisfy yourself, you turn to pick up those that
+you have laid out, and find that they have mysteriously vanished
+from the face of the earth.
+
+Then you struggle with naughty words and relapse into a condition of
+mental palsy.
+
+Precipitation is a fault.  But deliberation, for a person of
+precipitate disposition, is a vice.
+
+The best thing to do in such a case is to adopt some abstract theory
+of action without delay, and put it into practice without
+hesitation.  Then if you fail, you can throw the responsibility on
+the theory.
+
+Now, in regard to flies there are two theories.  The old,
+conservative theory is, that on a bright day you should use a dark,
+dull fly, because it is less conspicuous.  So I followed that theory
+first and put on a Great Dun and a Dark Montreal.  I cast them
+delicately over the fish, but he would not look at them.
+
+Then I perverted myself to the new, radical theory which says that
+on a bright day you must use a light, gay fly, because it is more in
+harmony with the sky, and therefore less noticeable.  Accordingly I
+put on a Professor and a Parmacheene Belle; but this combination of
+learning and beauty had no attraction for the ouananiche.
+
+Then I fell back on a theory of my own, to the effect that the
+ouananiche have an aversion to red, and prefer yellow and brown.  So
+I tried various combinations of flies in which these colours
+predominated.
+
+Then I abandoned all theories and went straight through my book,
+trying something from every page, and winding up with that lure
+which the guides consider infallible,--"a Jock o' Scott that cost
+fifty cents at Quebec."  But it was all in vain.  I was ready to
+despair.
+
+At this psychological moment I heard behind me a voice of hope,--the
+song of a grasshopper: not one of those fat-legged, green-winged
+imbeciles that feebly tumble in the summer fields, but a game
+grasshopper,--one of those thin-shanked, brown-winged fellows that
+leap like kangaroos, and fly like birds, and sing KRI-KAREE-KAREE-
+KRI in their flight.
+
+It is not really a song, I know, but it sounds like one; and, if you
+had heard that Kri-karee carolling as I chased him over the rocks,
+you would have been sure that he was mocking me.
+
+I believed that he was the predestined lure for that ouananiche; but
+it was hard to persuade him to fulfill his destiny.  I slapped at
+him with my hat, but he was not there.  I grasped at him on the
+bushes, and brought away "nothing but leaves."  At last he made his
+way to the very edge of the water and poised himself on a stone,
+with his legs well tucked in for a long leap and a bold flight to
+the other side of the river.  It was my final opportunity.  I made a
+desperate grab at it and caught the grasshopper.
+
+My premonition proved to be correct.  When that Kri-karee, invisibly
+attached to my line, went floating down the stream, the ouananiche
+was surprised.  It was the fourteenth of September, and he had
+supposed the grasshopper season was over.  The unexpected temptation
+was too strong for him.  He rose with a rush, and in an instant I
+was fast to the best land-locked salmon of the year.
+
+But the situation was not without its embarrassments.  My rod
+weighed only four and a quarter ounces; the fish weighed between six
+and seven pounds.  The water was furious and headstrong.  I had only
+thirty yards of line and no landing-net.
+
+"HOLA!  FERDINAND!" I cried.  "APPORTE LA NETTE, VITE!  A BEAUTY!
+HURRY UP!"
+
+I thought it must be an hour while he was making his way over the
+hill, through the underbrush, around the cliff.  Again and again the
+fish ran out my line almost to the last turn.  A dozen times he
+leaped from the water, shaking his silvery sides.  Twice he tried to
+cut the leader across a sunken ledge.  But at last he was played
+out, and came in quietly towards the point of the rock.  At the same
+moment Ferdinand appeared with the net.
+
+Now, the use of the net is really the most difficult part of
+angling.  And Ferdinand is the best netsman in the Lake St. John
+country.  He never makes the mistake of trying to scoop a fish in
+motion.  He does not grope around with aimless, futile strokes as if
+he were feeling for something in the dark.  He does not entangle the
+dropper-fly in the net and tear the tail-fly out of the fish's
+mouth.  He does not get excited.
+
+He quietly sinks the net in the water, and waits until he can see
+the fish distinctly, lying perfectly still and within reach.  Then
+he makes a swift movement, like that of a mower swinging the scythe,
+takes the fish into the net head-first, and lands him without a
+slip.
+
+I felt sure that Ferdinand was going to do the trick in precisely
+this way with my ouananiche.  Just at the right instant he made one
+quick, steady swing of the arms, and--the head of the net broke
+clean off the handle and went floating away with the fish in it!
+
+All seemed to be lost.  But Ferdinand was equal to the occasion.  He
+seized a long, crooked stick that lay in a pile of driftwood on the
+shore, sprang into the water up to his waist, caught the net as it
+drifted past, and dragged it to land, with the ultimate ouananiche,
+the prize of the season, still glittering through its meshes.
+
+This is the story of my most thrilling moment as an angler.
+
+But which was the moment of the deepest thrill?
+
+Was it when the huckleberry bush saved me from a watery grave, or
+when the log rolled under my feet and started down the river?  Was
+it when the fish rose, or when the net broke, or when the long stick
+captured it?
+
+No, it was none of these.  It was when the Kri-karee sat with his
+legs tucked under him on the brink of the stream.  That was the
+turning-point.  The fortunes of the day depended on the comparative
+quickness of the reflex action of his neural ganglia and mine.  That
+was the thrilling moment.
+
+I see it now.  A crisis is really the commonest thing in the world.
+The reason why life sometimes seems dull to us is because we do not
+perceive the importance and the excitement of getting bait.
+
+
+
+TALKABILITY
+
+A PRELUDE AND THEME WITH VARIATIONS
+
+
+"He praises a meditative life, and with evident sincerity: but we
+feel that he liked nothing so well as good talk."--JAMES RUSSELL
+LOWELL: Walton.
+
+
+I
+
+PRELUDE--ON AN OLD, FOOLISH MAXIM
+
+
+The inventor of the familiar maxim that "fishermen must not talk" is
+lost in the mists of antiquity, and well deserves his fate.  For a
+more foolish rule, a conventionality more obscure and aimless in its
+tyranny, was never imposed upon an innocent and honourable
+occupation, to diminish its pleasure and discount its profits.  Why,
+in the name of all that is genial, should anglers go about their
+harmless sport in stealthy silence like conspirators, or sit
+together in a boat, dumb, glum, and penitential, like naughty
+schoolboys on the bench of disgrace?  'Tis an Omorcan superstition;
+a rule without a reason; a venerable, idiotic fashion invented to
+repress lively spirits and put a premium on stupidity.
+
+For my part, I incline rather to the opinion of the Neapolitan
+fishermen who maintain that a certain amount of noise, of certain
+kinds, is likely to improve the fishing, and who have a particular
+song, very sweet and charming, which they sing to draw the fishes
+around them.  It is narrated, likewise, of the good St. Brandan,
+that on his notable voyage from Ireland in search of Paradise, he
+chanted the service for St. Peter's day so pleasantly that a
+subaqueous audience of all sorts and sizes was attracted, insomuch
+that the other monks began to be afraid, and begged the abbot that
+he would sing a little lower, for they were not quite sure of the
+intention of the congregation.  Of St. Anthony of Padua it is said
+that he even succeeded in persuading the fishes, in great
+multitudes, to listen to a sermon; and that when it was ended (it
+must be noted that it was both short and cheerful) they bowed their
+heads and moved their bodies up and down with every mark of fondness
+and approval of what the holy father had spoken.
+
+If we can believe this, surely we need not be incredulous of things
+which seem to be no less, but rather more, in harmony with the
+course of nature.  Creatures who are sensible to the attractions of
+a sermon can hardly be indifferent to the charm of other kinds of
+discourse.  I can easily imagine a company of grayling wishing to
+overhear a conversation between I. W. and his affectionate (but
+somewhat prodigal) son and servant, Charles Cotton; and surely every
+intelligent salmon in Scotland might have been glad to hear
+Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd bandy jests and swap
+stories.  As for trout,--was there one in Massachusetts that would
+not have been curious to listen to the intimate opinions of Daniel
+Webster as he loafed along the banks of the Marshpee,--or is there
+one in Pennsylvania to-day that might not be drawn with interest and
+delight to the feet of Joseph Jefferson, telling how he conceived
+and wrote RIP VAN WINKLE on the banks of a trout-stream?
+
+Fishermen must be silent?  On the contrary, it is far more likely
+that good talk may promote good fishing.
+
+All this, however, goes upon the assumption that fish can hear, in
+the proper sense of the word.  And this, it must be confessed, is an
+assumption not yet fully verified.  Experienced anglers and students
+of fishy ways are divided upon the question.  It is beyond a doubt
+that all fishes, except the very lowest forms, have ears.  But then
+so have all men; and yet we have the best authority for believing
+that there are many who "having ears, hear not."
+
+The ears of fishes, for the most part, are inclosed in their skull,
+and have no outward opening.  Water conveys sound, as every country
+boy knows who has tried the experiment of diving to the bottom of
+the swimming-hole and knocking two big stones together.  But I doubt
+whether any country boy, engaged in this interesting scientific
+experiment, has heard the conversation of his friends on the bank
+who were engaged in hiding his clothes.
+
+There are many curious and more or less venerable stories to the
+effect that fishes may be trained to assemble at the ringing of a
+bell or the beating of a drum.  Lucian, a writer of the second
+century, tells of a certain lake wherein many sacred fishes were
+kept, of which the largest had names given to them, and came when
+they were called.  But Lucian was not a man of especially good
+reputation, and there is an air of improbability about his statement
+that the LARGEST fishes came.  This is not the custom of the largest
+fishes.
+
+In the present century there was a tale of an eel in a garden-well,
+in Scotland, which would come to be fed out of a spoon when the
+children called him by his singularly inappropriate name of Rob Roy.
+This seems a more likely story than Lucian's; at all events it comes
+from a more orthodox atmosphere.  But before giving it full
+credence, I should like to know whether the children, when they
+called "Rob Roy!" stood where the eel could see the spoon.
+
+On the other side of the question, we may quote Mr. Ronalds, also a
+Scotchman, and the learned author of THE FLY-FISHER'S ENTOMOLOGY,
+who conducted a series of experiments which proved that even trout,
+the most fugacious of fish, are not in the least disturbed by the
+discharge of a gun, provided the flash is concealed.  Mr. Henry P.
+Wells, the author of THE AMERICAN SALMON ANGLER, says that he has
+"never been able to make a sound in the air which seemed to produce
+the slightest effect upon trout in the water."
+
+So the controversy on the hearing of fishes continues, and the
+conclusion remains open.  Every man is at liberty to embrace that
+side which pleases him best.  You may think that the finny tribes
+are as sensitive to sound as Fine Ear, in the German fairy-tale, who
+could hear the grass grow.  Or you may hold the opposite opinion,
+that they are
+
+
+     "Deafer than the blue-eyed cat."
+
+
+But whichever theory you adopt, in practice, if you are a wise
+fisherman, you will steer a middle course, between one thing which
+must be left undone and another thing which should be done.  You
+will refrain from stamping on the bank, or knocking on the side of
+the boat, or dragging the anchor among the stones on the bottom; for
+when the water vibrates the fish are likely to vanish.  But you will
+indulge as freely as you please in pleasant discourse with your
+comrade; for it is certain that fishing is never hindered, and may
+even be helped, in one way or another, by good talk.
+
+I should therefore have no hesitation in advising any one to choose,
+for companionship on an angling expedition, long or short, a person
+who has the rare merit of being TALKABLE.
+
+
+
+II
+
+THEME--ON A SMALL, USEFUL VIRTUE
+
+
+"Talkable" is not a new adjective.  But it needs a new definition,
+and the complement of a corresponding noun.  I would fain set down
+on paper some observations and reflections which may serve to make
+its meaning clear, and render due praise to that most excellent
+quality in man or woman,--especially in anglers,--the small but
+useful virtue of TALKABILITY.
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson uses the word "talkable" in one of his essays
+to denote a certain distinction among the possible subjects of human
+speech.  There are some things, he says in effect, about which you
+can really talk; and there are other things about which you cannot
+properly talk at all, but only dispute, or harangue, or prose, or
+moralize, or chatter.
+
+After mature consideration I have arrived at the opinion that this
+distinction among the themes of speech is an illusion.  It does not
+exist.  All subjects, "the foolish things of the world, and the weak
+things of the world, and base things of the world, yea, and things
+that are not," may provide matter for good talk, if only the right
+people are engaged in the enterprise.  I know a man who can make a
+description of the weather as entertaining as a tune on the violin;
+and even on the threadbare theme of the waywardness of domestic
+servants, I have heard a discreet woman play the most diverting and
+instructive variations.
+
+No, the quality of talkability does not mark a distinction among
+things; it denotes a difference among people.  It is not an
+attribute unequally distributed among material objects and abstract
+ideas.  It is a virtue which belongs to the mind and moral character
+of certain persons.  It is a reciprocal human quality; active as
+well as passive; a power of bestowing and receiving.
+
+An amiable person is one who has a capacity for loving and being
+loved.  An affable person is one who is ready to speak and to be
+spoken to,--as, for example, Milton's "affable archangel" Raphael;
+though it must be confessed that he laid the chief emphasis on the
+active side of his affability.  A "clubable" person (to use a word
+which Dr. Samuel Johnson invented but did not put into his
+dictionary) is one who is fit for the familiar give and take of
+club-life.  A talkable person, therefore, is one whose nature and
+disposition invite the easy interchange of thoughts and feelings,
+one in whose company it is a pleasure to talk or to be talked to.
+
+Now this good quality of talkability is to be distinguished, very
+strictly and inflexibly, from the bad quality which imitates it and
+often brings it into discredit.  I mean the vice of talkativeness.
+That is a selfish, one-sided, inharmonious affair, full of
+discomfort, and productive of most unchristian feelings.
+
+You may observe the operations of this vice not only in human
+beings, but also in birds.  All the birds in the bush can make some
+kind of a noise; and most of them like to do it; and some of them
+like it a great deal and do it very much.  But it is not always for
+edification, nor are the most vociferous and garrulous birds
+commonly the most pleasing.  A parrot, for instance, in your
+neighbour's back yard, in the summer time, when the windows are
+open, is not an aid to the development of Christian character.  I
+knew a man who had to stay in the city all summer, and in the autumn
+was asked to describe the character and social standing of a new
+family that had moved into his neighbourhood.  Were they "nice
+people," well-bred, intelligent, respectable?  "Well," said he, "I
+don't know what your standards are, and would prefer not to say
+anything libellous; but I'll tell you in a word,--they are the kind
+of people that keep a parrot."
+
+Then there is the English Sparrow!  What an insufferable chatterbox,
+what an incurable scold, what a voluble and tiresome blackguard is
+this little feathered cockney.  There is not a sweet or pleasant
+word in all his vocabulary.
+
+I am convinced that he talks altogether of scandals and fights and
+street-sweepings.
+
+The kingdom of ornithology is divided into two departments,--real
+birds and English sparrows.  English sparrows are not real birds;
+they are little beasts.
+
+There was a church in Brooklyn which was once covered with a great
+and spreading vine, in which the sparrows built innumerable nests.
+These ungodly little birds kept up such a din that it was impossible
+to hear the service of the sanctuary.  The faithful clergy strained
+their voices to the verge of ministerial sore throat, but the people
+had no peace in their devotions until the vine was cut down, and the
+Anglican intruders were evicted.
+
+A talkative person is like an English sparrow,--a bird that cannot
+sing, and will sing, and ought to be persuaded not to try to sing.
+But a talkable person has the gift that belongs to the wood thrush
+and the veery and the wren, the oriole and the white-throat and the
+rose-breasted grosbeak, the mockingbird and the robin (sometimes);
+and the brown thrush; yes, the brown thrush has it to perfection, if
+you can catch him alone,--the gift of being interesting, charming,
+delightful, in the most off-hand and various modes of utterance.
+
+Talkability is not at all the same thing as eloquence.  The eloquent
+man surprises, overwhelms, and sometimes paralyzes us by the display
+of his power.  Great orators are seldom good talkers.  Oratory in
+exercise is masterful and jealous, and intolerant of all
+interruptions.  Oratory in preparation is silent, self-centred,
+uncommunicative.  The painful truth of this remark may he seen in
+the row of countenances along the president's table at a public
+banquet about nine o'clock in the evening.  The bicycle-face seems
+unconstrained and merry by comparison with the after-dinner-speech-
+face.  The flow of table-talk is corked by the anxious conception of
+post-prandial oratory.
+
+Thackeray, in one of his ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, speaks of "the sin of
+tall-talking," which, he says, "is the sin of schoolmasters,
+governesses, critics, sermoners, and instructors of young or old
+people."  But this is not in accord with my observation.  I should
+say it was rather the sin of dilettanti who are ambitious of that
+high-stepping accomplishment which is called "conversational
+ability."
+
+This has usually, to my mind, something set and artificial about it,
+although in its most perfect form the art almost succeeds in
+concealing itself.  But, at all events, ''conversation'' is talk in
+evening dress, with perhaps a little powder and a touch of rouge.
+'T is like one of those wise virgins who are said to look their best
+by lamplight.  And doubtless this is an excellent thing, and not
+without its advantages.  But for my part, commend me to one who
+loses nothing by the early morning illumination,--one who brings all
+her attractions with her when she comes down to breakfast,--she is a
+very pleasant maid.
+
+Talk is that form of human speech which is exempt from all duties,
+foreign and domestic.  It is the nearest thing in the world to
+thinking and feeling aloud.  It is necessarily not for publication,--
+solely an evidence of good faith and mutual kindness.  You tell me
+what you have seen and what you are thinking about, because you take
+it for granted that it will interest and entertain me; and you
+listen to my replies and the recital of my adventures and opinions,
+because you know I like to tell them, and because you find something
+in them, of one kind or another, that you care to hear.  It is a
+nice game, with easy, simple rules, and endless possibilities of
+variation.  And if we go into it with the right spirit, and play it
+for love, without heavy stakes, the chances are that if we happen to
+be fairly talkable people we shall have one of the best things in
+the world,--a mighty good talk.
+
+What is there in this anxious, hide-bound, tiresome existence of
+ours, more restful and remunerative?  Montaigne says, "The use of it
+is more sweet than of any other action of life; and for that reason
+it is that, if I were compelled to choose, I should sooner, I think,
+consent to lose my sight than my hearing and speech."  The very
+aimlessness with which it proceeds, the serene disregard of all
+considerations of profit and propriety with which it follows its
+wandering course, and brings up anywhere or nowhere, to camp for the
+night, is one of its attractions.  It is like a day's fishing, not
+valuable chiefly for the fish you bring home, but for the pleasant
+country through which it leads you, and the state of personal well-
+being and health in which it leaves you, warmed, and cheered, and
+content with life and friendship.
+
+The order in which you set out upon a talk, the path which you
+pursue, the rules which you observe or disregard, make but little
+difference in the end.  You may follow the advice of Immanuel Kant
+if you like, and begin with the weather and the roads, and go on to
+current events, and wind up with history, art, and philosophy.  Or
+you may reverse the order if you prefer, like that admirable talker
+Clarence King, who usually set sail on some highly abstract paradox,
+such as "Civilization is a nervous disease," and landed in a tale of
+adventure in Mexico or the Rocky Mountains.  Or you may follow the
+example of Edward Eggleston, who started in at the middle and worked
+out at either end, and sometimes at both.  It makes no difference.
+If the thing is in you at all, you will find good matter for talk
+anywhere along the route.  Hear what Montaigne says again: "In our
+discourse all subjects are alike to me; let there be neither weight
+nor depth, 't is all one; there is yet grace and pertinence; all
+there is tented with a mature and constant judgment, and mixed with
+goodness, freedom, gayety, and friendship."
+
+How close to the mark the old essayist sends his arrow!  He is right
+about the essential qualities of good talk.  They are not merely
+intellectual.  They are moral.  Goodness of heart, freedom of
+spirit, gayety of temper, and friendliness of disposition,--these
+are four fine things, and doubtless as acceptable to God as they are
+agreeable to men.  The talkability which springs out of these
+qualities has its roots in a good soil.  On such a plant one need
+not look for the poison berries of malign discourse, nor for the
+Dead Sea apples of frivolous mockery.  But fair fruit will be there,
+pleasant to the sight and good for food, brought forth abundantly
+according to the season.
+
+
+
+III
+
+VARIATIONS--ON A PLEASANT PHRASE FROM MONTAIGNE
+
+
+Montaigne has given as our text, "Goodness, freedom, gayety, and
+friendship,"--these are the conditions which produce talkability.
+And on this fourfold theme we may embroider a few variations, by way
+of exposition and enlargement.
+
+GOODNESS is the first thing and the most needful.  An ugly, envious,
+irritable disposition is not fitted for talk.  The occasions for
+offence are too numerous, and the way into strife is too short and
+easy.  A touch of good-natured combativeness, a fondness for brisk
+argument, a readiness to try a friendly bout with any comer, on any
+ground, is a decided advantage in a talker.  It breaks up the
+offensive monotony of polite concurrence, and makes things lively.
+But quarrelsomeness is quite another affair, and very fatal.
+
+I am always a little uneasy in a discourse with the Reverend
+Bellicosus Macduff.  It is like playing golf on links liable to
+earthquakes.  One never knows when the landscape will be thrown into
+convulsions.  Macduff has a tendency to regard a difference of
+opinion as a personal insult.  If he makes a bad stroke he seems to
+think that the way to retrieve it is to deliver the next one on the
+head of the other player.  He does not tarry for the invitation to
+lay on; and before you know what has happened you find yourself in a
+position where you are obliged to cry, "Hold, enough!" and to be
+liberally damned without any bargain to that effect.  This is
+discouraging, and calculated to make one wish that human intercourse
+might be put, as far as Macduff is concerned, upon the gold basis of
+silence.
+
+On the other hand, what a delight it was to talk with that old
+worthy, Chancellor Howard Crosby.  He was a fighting man for four or
+five generations hack, Dutch on one side, English on the other.  But
+there was not one little drop of gall in his blood.  His opinions
+were fixed to a degree; he loved to do battle for them; he never
+changed them--at least never in the course of the same discussion.
+He admired and respected a gallant adversary, and urged him on, with
+quips and puns and daring assaults and unqualified statements, to do
+his best.  Easy victories were not to his taste.  Even if he joined
+with you in laying out some common falsehood for burial, you might
+be sure that before the affair was concluded there would be every
+prospect of what an Irishman would call "an elegant wake."  If you
+stood up against him on one of his favorite subjects of discussion
+you must be prepared for hot work.  You would have to take off your
+coat.  But when the combat was over he would be the man to help you
+on with it again; and you would walk home together arm in arm,
+through the twilight, smoking the pipe of peace.  Talk like that
+does good.  It quickens the beating of the heart, and leaves no
+scars upon it.
+
+But this manly spirit, which loves
+
+
+     "To drink delight of battle with its peers,"
+
+
+is a very different thing from that mean, bad, hostile temper which
+loves to inflict wounds and injuries just for the sake of showing
+power, and which is never so happy as when it is making some one
+wince.  There are such people in the world, and sometimes their
+brilliancy tempts us to forget their malignancy.  But to have much
+converse with them is as if we should make playmates of rattlesnakes
+for their grace of movement and swiftness of stroke.
+
+I knew a man once (I will not name him even with an initial) who was
+malignant to the core.  Learned, industrious, accomplished, he kept
+all his talents at the service of a perfect genius for hatred.  If
+you crossed his path but once, he would never cease to curse you.
+The grave might close over you, but he would revile your epitaph and
+mock at your memory.  It was not even necessary that you should do
+anything to incur his enmity.  It was enough to be upright and
+sincere and successful, to waken the wrath of this Shimei.
+Integrity was an offence to him, and excellence of any kind filled
+him with spleen.  There was no good cause within his horizon that he
+did not give a bad word to, and no decent man in the community whom
+he did not try either to use or to abuse.  To listen to him or to
+read what he had written was to learn to think a little worse of
+every one that he mentioned, and worst of all of him.  He had the
+air of a gentleman, the vocabulary of a scholar, the style of a
+Junius, and the heart of a Thersites.
+
+Talk, in such company, is impossible.  The sense of something evil,
+lurking beneath the play of wit, is like the knowledge that there
+are snakes in the grass.  Every step must be taken with fear.  But
+the real pleasure of a walk through the meadow comes from the
+feeling of security, of ease, of safe and happy abandon to the mood
+of the moment.  This ungirdled and unguarded felicity in mutual
+discourse depends, after all, upon the assurance of real goodness in
+your companion.  I do not mean a stiff impeccability of conduct.
+Prudes and Pharisees are poor comrades.  I mean simply goodness of
+heart, the wholesome, generous, kindly quality which thinketh no
+evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, hopeth all things, endureth all
+things, and wisheth well to all men.  Where you feel this quality
+you can let yourself go, in the ease of hearty talk.
+
+FREEDOM is the second note that Montaigne strikes, and it is
+essential to the harmony of talking.  Very careful, prudent, precise
+persons are seldom entertaining in familiar speech.  They are like
+tennis players in too fine clothes.  They think more of their
+costume than of the game.
+
+A mania for absolutely correct pronunciation is fatal.  The people
+who are afflicted with this painful ailment are as anxious about
+their utterance as dyspeptics about their diet.  They move through
+their sentences as delicately as Agag walked.  Their little airs of
+nicety, their starched cadences and frilled phrases seem as if they
+had just been taken out of a literary bandbox.  If perchance you
+happen to misplace an accent, you shall see their eyebrows curl up
+like an interrogation mark, and they will ask you what authority you
+have for that pronunciation.  As if, forsooth, a man could not talk
+without book-license!  As if he must have a permit from some dusty
+lexicon before he can take a good word into his mouth and speak it
+out like the people with whom he has lived!
+
+The truth is that the man who is very particular not to commit
+himself, in pronunciation or otherwise, and talks as if his remarks
+were being taken down in shorthand, and shudders at the thought of
+making a mistake, will hardly be able to open your heart or let out
+the best that is in his own.
+
+Reserve and precision are a great protection to overrated
+reputations; but they are death to talk.
+
+In talk it is not correctness of grammar nor elegance of enunciation
+that charms us; it is spirit, VERVE, the sudden turn of humour, the
+keen, pungent taste of life.  For this reason a touch of dialect, a
+flavour of brogue, is delightful.  Any dialect is classic that has
+conveyed beautiful thoughts.  Who that ever talked with the poet
+Tennyson, when he let himself go, over the pipes, would miss the
+savour of his broad-rolling Lincolnshire vowels, now heightening the
+humour, now deepening the pathos, of his genuine manly speech?
+There are many good stories lingering in the memories of those who
+knew Dr. James McCosh, the late president of Princeton University,--
+stories too good, I fear, to get into a biography; but the best of
+them, in print, would not have the snap and vigour of the poorest of
+them, in talk, with his own inimitable Scotch-Irish brogue to set it
+forth.
+
+A brogue is not a fault.  It is a beauty, an heirloom, a
+distinction.  A local accent is like a landed inheritance; it marks
+a man's place in the world, tells where he comes from.  Of course it
+is possible to have too much of it.  A man does not need to carry
+the soil of his whole farm around with him on his boots.  But,
+within limits, the accent of a native region is delightful.  'T is
+the flavour of heather in the grouse, the taste of wild herbs and
+evergreen-buds in the venison.  I like the maple-sugar tang of the
+Vermonter's sharp-edged speech; the round, full-waisted r's of
+Pennsylvania and Ohio; the soft, indolent vowels of the South.  One
+of the best talkers now living is a schoolmaster from Virginia,
+Colonel Gordon McCabe.  I once crossed the ocean with him on a
+stream of stories that reached from Liverpool to New York.  He did
+not talk in the least like a book.  He talked like a Virginian.
+
+When Montaigne mentions GAYETY as the third clement of satisfying
+discourse, I fancy he does not mean mere fun, though that has its
+value at the right time and place.  But there is another quality
+which is far more valuable and always fit.  Indeed it underlies the
+best fun and makes it wholesome.  It is cheerfulness, the temper
+which makes the best of things and squeezes the little drops of
+honey even out of thistle-blossoms.  I think this is what Montaigne
+meant.  Certainly it is what he had.
+
+Cheerfulness is the background of all good talk.  A sense of humour
+is a means of grace.  With it I have heard a pleasant soul make even
+that most perilous of all subjects, the description of a long
+illness, entertaining.  The various physicians moved through the
+recital as excellent comedians, and the medicines appeared like a
+succession of timely jests.
+
+There is no occasion upon which this precious element of talkability
+comes out stronger than when we are on a journey.  Travel with a
+cheerless and easily discouraged companion is an unadulterated
+misery.  But a cheerful comrade is better than a waterproof coat and
+a foot-warmer.
+
+I remember riding once with my lady Graygown fifteen miles through a
+cold rainstorm, in an open buckboard, over the worst road in the
+world, from LAC A LA BELLE RIVIERE to the Metabetchouan River.  Such
+was the cheerfulness of her ejaculations (the only possible form of
+talk) that we arrived at our destination as warm and merry as if we
+had been sitting beside a roaring camp-fire.
+
+
+But after all, the very best thing in good talk, and the thing that
+helps it most, is FRIENDSHIP.  How it dissolves the barriers that
+divide us, and loosens all constraint, and diffuses itself like some
+fine old cordial through all the veins of life--this feeling that we
+understand and trust each other, and wish each other heartily well!
+Everything into which it really comes is good.  It transforms
+letter-writing from a task into a pleasure.  It makes music a
+thousand times more sweet.  The people who play and sing not at us,
+but TO us,--how delightful it is to listen to them!  Yes, there is a
+talkability that can express itself even without words.  There is an
+exchange of thought and feeling which is happy alike in speech and
+in silence.  It is quietness pervaded with friendship.
+
+
+Having come thus far in the exposition of Montaigne, I shall
+conclude with an opinion of my own, even though I cannot quote a
+sentence of his to back it.
+
+The one person of all the world in whom talkability is most
+desirable, and talkativeness least endurable, is a wife.
+
+
+
+A WILD STRAWBERRY
+
+
+"Such is the story of the Boblink; once spiritual, musical, admired,
+the joy of the meadows, and the favourite bird of spring; finally a
+gross little sensualist who expiates his sensuality in the larder.
+His story contains a moral, worthy the attention of all little birds
+and little boys; warning them to keep to those refined and
+intellectual pursuits which raised him to so high a pitch of
+popularity during the early part of his career; but to eschew all
+tendency to that gross and dissipated indulgence, which brought this
+mistaken little bird to an untimely end."--WASHINGTON IRVING:
+Wolfert's Roost.
+
+
+The Swiftwater brook was laughing softly to itself as it ran through
+a strip of hemlock forest on the edge of the Woodlings' farm.  Among
+the evergreen branches overhead the gayly-dressed warblers,--little
+friends of the forest,--were flitting to and fro, lisping their June
+songs of contented love: milder, slower, lazier notes than those in
+which they voiced the amourous raptures of May.  Prince's Pine and
+golden loose-strife and pink laurel and blue hare-bells and purple-
+fringed orchids, and a score of lovely flowers were all abloom.  The
+late spring had hindered some; the sudden heats of early summer had
+hastened others; and now they seemed to come out all together, as if
+Nature had suddenly tilted up her cornucopia and poured forth her
+treasures in spendthrift joy.
+
+I lay on a mossy bank at the foot of a tree, filling my pipe after a
+frugal lunch, and thinking how hard it would be to find in any
+quarter of the globe a place more fair and fragrant than this hidden
+vale among the Alleghany Mountains.  The perfume of the flowers of
+the forest is more sweet and subtle than the heavy scent of tropical
+blossoms.  No lily-field in Bermuda could give a fragrance half so
+magical as the fairy-like odour of these woodland slopes, soft
+carpeted with the green of glossy vines above whose tiny leaves, in
+delicate profusion,
+
+
+     "The slight Linnaea hangs its twin-born heads."
+
+
+Nor are there any birds in Africa, or among the Indian Isles, more
+exquisite in colour than these miniature warblers, showing their
+gold and green, their orange and black, their blue and white,
+against the dark background of the rhododendron thicket.
+
+But how seldom we put a cup of pleasure to our lips without a dash
+of bitters, a touch of faultfinding.  My drop of discontent, that
+day, was the thought that the northern woodland, at least in June,
+yielded no fruit to match its beauty and its fragrance.
+
+There is good browsing among the leaves of the wood and the grasses
+of the meadow, as every well-instructed angler knows.  The bright
+emerald tips that break from the hemlock and the balsam like verdant
+flames have a pleasant savour to the tongue.  The leaves of the
+sassafras are full of spice, and the bark of the black-birch twigs
+holds a fine cordial.  Crinkle-root is spicy, but you must partake
+of it delicately, or it will bite your tongue.  Spearmint and
+peppermint never lose their charm for the palate that still
+remembers the delights of youth.  Wild sorrel has an agreeable,
+sour, shivery flavour.  Even the tender stalk of a young blade of
+grass is a thing that can be chewed by a person of childlike mind
+with much contentment.
+
+But, after all, these are only relishes.  They whet the appetite
+more than they appease it.  There should be something to eat, in the
+June woods, as perfect in its kind, as satisfying to the sense of
+taste, as the birds and the flowers are to the senses of sight and
+hearing and smell.  Blueberries are good, but they are far away in
+July.  Blackberries are luscious when they are fully ripe, but that
+will not be until August.  Then the fishing will be over, and the
+angler's hour of need will be past.  The one thing that is lacking
+now beside this mountain stream is some fruit more luscious and
+dainty than grows in the tropics, to melt upon the lips and fill the
+mouth with pleasure.
+
+But that is what these cold northern woods will not offer.  They are
+too reserved, too lofty, too puritanical to make provision for the
+grosser wants of humanity.  They are not friendly to luxury.
+
+Just then, as I shifted my head to find a softer pillow of moss
+after this philosophic and immoral reflection, Nature gave me her
+silent answer.  Three wild strawberries, nodding on their long
+stems, hung over my face.  It was an invitation to taste and see
+that they were good.
+
+The berries were not the round and rosy ones of the meadow, but the
+long, slender, dark crimson ones of the forest.  One, two, three; no
+more on that vine; but each one as it touched my lips was a drop of
+nectar and a crumb of ambrosia, a concentrated essence of all the
+pungent sweetness of the wildwood, sapid, penetrating, and
+delicious.  I tasted the odour of a hundred blossoms and the green
+shimmering of innumerable leaves and the sparkle of sifted sunbeams
+and the breath of highland breezes and the song of many birds and
+the murmur of flowing streams,--all in a wild strawberry.
+
+
+Do you remember, in THE COMPLEAT ANGLER, a remark which Isaak Walton
+quotes from a certain "Doctor Boteler" about strawberries?
+"Doubtless," said that wise old man, "God could have made a better
+berry, but doubtless God never did."
+
+Well, the wild strawberry is the one that God made.
+
+I think it would have been pleasant to know a man who could sum up
+his reflections upon the important question of berries in such a
+pithy saying as that which Walton repeats.  His tongue must have
+been in close communication with his heart.  He must have had a fair
+sense of that sprightly humour without which piety itself is often
+insipid.
+
+I have often tried to find out more about him, and some day I hope I
+shall.  But up to the present, all that the books have told me of
+this obscure sage is that his name was William Butler, and that he
+was an eminent physician, sometimes called "the Aesculapius of his
+age."  He was born at Ipswich, in 1535, and educated at Clare Hall,
+Cambridge; in the neighbourhood of which town he appears to have
+spent the most of his life, in high repute as a practitioner of
+physic.  He had the honour of doctoring King James the First after
+an accident on the hunting field, and must have proved himself a
+pleasant old fellow, for the king looked him up at Cambridge the
+next year, and spent an hour in his lodgings.  This wise physician
+also invented a medicinal beverage called "Doctor Butler's Ale."  I
+do not quite like the sound of it, but perhaps it was better than
+its name.  This much is sure, at all events: either it was really a
+harmless drink, or else the doctor must have confined its use
+entirely to his patients; for he lived to the ripe age of eighty-
+three years.
+
+Between the time when William Butler first needed the services of a
+physician, in 1535, and the time when he last prescribed for a
+patient, in 1618, there was plenty of trouble in England.  Bloody
+Queen Mary sat on the throne; and there were all kinds of quarrels
+about religion and politics; and Catholics and Protestants were
+killing one another in the name of God.  After that the red-haired
+Elizabeth, called the Virgin Queen, wore the crown, and waged
+triumphant war and tempestuous love.  Then fat James of Scotland was
+made king of Great Britain; and Guy Fawkes tried to blow him up with
+gunpowder, and failed; and the king tried to blow out all the pipes
+in England with his COUNTERBLAST AGAINST TOBACCO; but he failed too.
+Somewhere about that time, early in the seventeenth century, a very
+small event happened.  A new berry was brought over from Virginia,--
+FRAGRARIA VIRGINIANA,--and then, amid wars and rumours of wars,
+Doctor Butler's happiness was secure.  That new berry was so much
+richer and sweeter and more generous than the familiar FRAGRARIA
+VESCA of Europe, that it attracted the sincere interest of all
+persons of good taste.  It inaugurated a new era in the history of
+the strawberry.  The long lost masterpiece of Paradise was restored
+to its true place in the affections of man.
+
+Is there not a touch of merry contempt for all the vain
+controversies and conflicts of humanity in the grateful ejaculation
+with which the old doctor greeted that peaceful, comforting gift of
+Providence?
+
+"From this time forward," he seems to say, "the fates cannot beggar
+me, for I have eaten strawberries.  With every Maytime that visits
+this distracted island, the white blossoms with hearts of gold will
+arrive.  In every June the red drops of pleasant savour will hang
+among the scalloped leaves.  The children of this world may wrangle
+and give one another wounds that even my good ale cannot cure.
+Nevertheless, the earth as God created it is a fair dwelling and
+full of comfort for all who have a quiet mind and a thankful heart.
+Doubtless God might have made a better world, but doubtless this is
+the world He made for us; and in it He planted the strawberry."
+
+Fine old doctor!  Brave philosopher of cheerfulness!  The Virginian
+berry should have been brought to England sooner, or you should have
+lived longer, at least to a hundred years, so that you might have
+welcomed a score of strawberry-seasons with gratitude and an
+epigram.
+
+Since that time a great change has passed over the fruit which
+Doctor Butler praised so well.  That product of creative art which
+Divine wisdom did not choose to surpass, human industry has laboured
+to improve.  It has grown immensely in size and substance.  The
+traveller from America who steams into Queenstown harbour in early
+summer is presented (for a consideration) with a cabbage-leaf full
+of pale-hued berries, sweet and juicy, any one of which would
+outbulk a dozen of those that used to grow in Virginia when
+Pocahontas was smitten with the charms of Captain John Smith.  They
+are superb, those light-tinted Irish strawberries.  And there are
+wonderful new varieties developed in the gardens of New Jersey and
+Rhode Island, which compare with the ancient berries of the woods
+and meadows as Leviathan with a minnow.  The huge crimson cushions
+hang among the plants so thick that they seem like bunches of fruit
+with a few leaves attached for ornament.  You can satisfy your
+hunger in such a berry-patch in ten minutes, while out in the field
+you must pick for half an hour, and in the forest thrice as long,
+before you can fill a small tin cup.
+
+Yet, after all, it is questionable whether men have really bettered
+God's CHEF D'OEUVRE in the berry line.  They have enlarged it and
+made it more plentiful and more certain in its harvest.  But
+sweeter, more fragrant, more poignant in its flavour?  No.  The wild
+berry still stands first in its subtle gusto.
+
+Size is not the measure of excellence.  Perfection lies in quality,
+not in quantity.  Concentration enhances pleasure, gives it a point
+so that it goes deeper.
+
+Is not a ten-inch trout better than a ten-foot sturgeon?  I would
+rather read a tiny essay by Charles Lamb than a five-hundred page
+libel on life by a modern British novelist who shall be nameless.
+Flavour is the priceless quality.  Style is the thing that counts
+and is remembered, in literature, in art, and in berries.
+
+No JOCUNDA, nor TRIUMPH, nor VICTORIA, nor any other high-titled
+fruit that ever took the first prize at an agricultural fair, is
+half so delicate and satisfying as the wild strawberry that dropped
+into my mouth, under the hemlock tree, beside the Swiftwater.
+
+A touch of surprise is essential to perfect sweetness.
+
+To get what you have been wishing for is pleasant; but to get what
+you have not been sure of, makes the pleasure tingle.  A new door of
+happiness is opened when you go out to hunt for something and
+discover it with your own eyes.  But there is an experience even
+better than that.  When you have stupidly forgotten (or despondently
+forgone) to look about you for the unclaimed treasures and unearned
+blessings which are scattered along the by-ways of life, then,
+sometimes by a special mercy, a small sample of them is quietly laid
+before you so that you cannot help seeing it, and it brings you back
+to a sense of the joyful possibilities of living.
+
+How full of enjoyment is the search after wild things,--wild birds,
+wild flowers, wild honey, wild berries!  There was a country club on
+Storm King Mountain, above the Hudson River, where they used to
+celebrate a festival of flowers every spring.  Men and women who had
+conservatories of their own, full of rare plants and costly orchids,
+came together to admire the gathered blossoms of the woodlands and
+meadows.  But the people who had the best of the entertainment were
+the boys and girls who wandered through the thickets and down the
+brooks, pushed their way into the tangled copses and crept
+venturesomely across the swamps, to look for the flowers.  Some of
+the seekers may have had a few gray hairs; but for that day at least
+they were all boys and girls.  Nature was as young as ever, and they
+were all her children.  Hand touched hand without a glove.  The
+hidden blossoms of friendship unfolded.  Laughter and merry shouts
+and snatches of half-forgotten song rose to the lips.  Gay adventure
+sparkled in the air.  School was out and nobody listened for the
+bell.  It was just a day to live, and be natural, and take no
+thought for the morrow.
+
+There is great luck in this affair of looking for flowers.  I do not
+see how any one who is prejudiced against games of chance can
+consistently undertake it.
+
+For my own part, I approve of garden flowers because they are so
+orderly and so certain; but wild flowers I love, just because there
+is so much chance about them.  Nature is all in favour of certainty
+in great laws and of uncertainty in small events.  You cannot
+appoint the day and the place for her flower-shows.  If you happen
+to drop in at the right moment she will give you a free admission.
+But even then it seems as if the table of beauty had been spread for
+the joy of a higher visitor, and in obedience to secret orders which
+you have not heard.
+
+Have you ever found the fringed gentian?
+
+
+          "Just before the snows,
+     There came a purple creature
+      That lavished all the hill:
+     And summer hid her forehead,
+      And mockery was still.
+
+     The frosts were her condition:
+      The Tyrian would not come
+     Until the North evoked her,--
+      'Creator, shall I bloom?'"
+
+
+There are strange freaks of fortune in the finding of wild flowers,
+and curious coincidences which make us feel as if some one were
+playing friendly tricks on us.  I remember reading, one evening in
+May, a passage in a good book called THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS,
+in which Colonel Higginson describes the singular luck that a friend
+of his enjoyed, year after year, in finding the rare blossoms of the
+double rueanemone.  It seems that this man needed only to take a
+walk in the suburbs of any town, and he would come upon a bed of
+these flowers, without effort or design.  I envied him his good
+fortune, for I had never discovered even one of them.  But the next
+morning, as I strolled out to fish the Swiftwater, down below Billy
+Lerns's spring-house I found a green bank in the shadow of the wood
+all bespangled with tiny, trembling, twofold stars,--double
+rueanemones, for luck!  It was a favourable omen, and that day I
+came home with a creel full of trout.
+
+The theory that Adam lived out in the woods for some time before he
+was put into the garden of Eden "to dress it and to keep it" has an
+air of probability.  How else shall we account for the arboreal
+instincts that cling to his posterity?
+
+There is a wilding strain in our blood that all the civilization in
+the world will not eradicate.  I never knew a real boy--or, for that
+matter, a girl worth knowing--who would not rather climb a tree, any
+day, than walk up a golden stairway.
+
+It is a touch of this instinct, I suppose, that makes it more
+delightful to fish in the most insignificant of free streams than in
+a carefully stocked and preserved pond, where the fish are brought
+up by hand and fed on minced liver.  Such elaborate precautions to
+ensure good luck extract all the spice from the sport of angling.
+Casting the fly in such a pond, if you hooked a fish, you might
+expect to hear the keeper say, "Ah, that is Charles, we will play
+him and put him back, if you please, sir; for the master is very
+fond of him,"--or, "Now you have got hold of Edward; let us land him
+and keep him; he is three years old this month, and just ready to be
+eaten."  It would seem like taking trout out of cold storage.
+
+Who could find any pleasure in angling for the tame carp in the
+fish-pool of Fontainebleau?  They gather at the marble steps, those
+venerable, courtly fish, to receive their rations; and there are
+veterans among them, in ancient livery, with fringes of green moss
+on their shoulders, who could tell you pretty tales of being fed by
+the white hands of maids of honour, or even of nibbling their crumbs
+of bread from the jewelled fingers of a princess.
+
+There is no sport in bringing pets to the table.  It may be
+necessary sometimes; but the true sportsman would always prefer to
+leave the unpleasant task of execution to menial hands, while he
+goes out into the wild country to capture his game by his own
+skill,--if he has good luck.  I would rather run some risk in this
+enterprise (even as the young Tobias did, when the voracious pike
+sprang at him from the waters of the Tigris, and would have devoured
+him but for the friendly instruction of the piscatory Angel, who
+taught Tobias how to land the monster),--I would far rather take any
+number of chances in my sport than have it domesticated to the point
+of dulness.
+
+The trim plantations of trees which are called "forests" in certain
+parts of Europe--scientifically pruned and tended, counted every
+year by uniformed foresters, and defended against all possible
+depredations--are admirable and useful in their way; but they lack
+the mystic enchantment of the fragments of native woodland which
+linger among the Adirondacks and the White Mountains, or the vast,
+shaggy, sylvan wildernesses which hide the lakes and rivers of
+Canada.  These Laurentian Hills lie in No Man's Land.  Here you do
+not need to keep to the path, for there is none.  You may make your
+own trail, whithersoever fancy leads you; and at night you may pitch
+your tent under any tree that looks friendly and firm.
+
+Here, if anywhere, you shall find Dryads, and Naiads, and Oreads.
+And if you chance to see one, by moonlight, combing her long hair
+beside the glimmering waterfall, or slipping silently, with gleaming
+shoulders, through the grove of silver birches, you may call her by
+the name that pleases you best.  She is all your own discovery.
+There is no social directory in the wilderness.
+
+One side of our nature, no doubt, finds its satisfaction in the
+regular, the proper, the conventional.  But there is another side of
+our nature, underneath, that takes delight in the strange, the free,
+the spontaneous.  We like to discover what we call a law of Nature,
+and make our calculations about it, and harness the force which lies
+behind it for our own purposes.  But we taste a different kind of
+joy when an event occurs which nobody has foreseen or counted upon.
+It seems like an evidence that there is something in the world which
+is alive and mysterious and untrammelled.
+
+The weather-prophet tells us of an approaching storm.  It comes
+according to the programme.  We admire the accuracy of the
+prediction, and congratulate ourselves that we have such a good
+meteorological service.  But when, perchance, a bright, crystalline
+piece of weather arrives instead of the foretold tempest, do we not
+feel a secret sense of pleasure which goes beyond our mere comfort
+in the sunshine?  The whole affair is not as easy as a sum in simple
+addition, after all,--at least not with our present knowledge.  It
+is a good joke on the Weather Bureau.  "Aha, Old Probabilities!" we
+say, "you don't know it all yet; there are still some chances to be
+taken!"
+
+Some day, I suppose, all things in the heavens above, and in the
+earth beneath, and in the hearts of the men and women who dwell
+between, will be investigated and explained.  We shall live a
+perfectly ordered life, with no accidents, happy or unhappy.
+Everybody will act according to rule, and there will be no dotted
+lines on the map of human existence, no regions marked "unexplored."
+Perhaps that golden age of the machine will come, but you and I will
+hardly live to see it.  And if that seems to you a matter for tears,
+you must do your own weeping, for I cannot find it in my heart to
+add a single drop of regret.
+
+The results of education and social discipline in humanity are fine.
+It is a good thing that we can count upon them.  But at the same
+time let us rejoice in the play of native traits and individual
+vagaries.  Cultivated manners are admirable, yet there is a sudden
+touch of inborn grace and courtesy that goes beyond them all.  No
+array of accomplishments can rival the charm of an unsuspected gift
+of nature, brought suddenly to light.  I once heard a peasant girl
+singing down the Traunthal, and the echo of her song outlives, in
+the hearing of my heart, all memories of the grand opera.
+
+The harvest of the gardens and the orchards, the result of prudent
+planting and patient cultivation, is full of satisfaction.  We
+anticipate it in due season, and when it comes we fill our mouths
+and are grateful.  But pray, kind Providence, let me slip over the
+fence out of the garden now and then, to shake a nut-tree that grows
+untended in the wood.  Give me liberty to put off my black coat for
+a day, and go a-fishing on a free stream, and find by chance a wild
+strawberry.
+
+
+
+LOVERS AND LANDSCAPE
+
+
+"He insisted that the love that was of real value in the world was
+n't interesting, and that the love that was interesting was n't
+always admirable.  Love that happened to a person like the measles
+or fits, and was really of no particular credit to itself or its
+victims, was the sort that got into the books and was made much of;
+whereas the kind that was attained by the endeavour of true souls,
+and that had wear in it, and that made things go right instead of
+tangling them up, was too much like duty to make satisfactory
+reading for people of sentiment."--E. S. MARTIN: My Cousin Anthony.
+
+
+The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is
+another.  The difference between them is sometimes as great as a
+month.
+
+The first day of spring is due to arrive, if the calendar does not
+break down, about the twenty-first of March, when the earth turns
+the corner of Sun Alley and starts for Summer Street.  But the first
+spring day is not on the time-table at all.  It comes when it is
+ready, and in the latitude of New York this is usually not till
+after All Fools' Day.
+
+About this time,--
+
+
+     "When chinks in April's windy dome
+      Let through a day of June,
+      And foot and thought incline to roam,
+      And every sound's a tune,"--
+
+
+it is the habit of the angler who lives in town to prepare for the
+labours of the approaching season by longer walks or bicycle-rides
+in the parks, or along the riverside, or in the somewhat demoralized
+Edens of the suburbs.  In the course of these vernal peregrinations
+and circumrotations, I observe that lovers of various kinds begin to
+occupy a notable place in the landscape.
+
+The burnished dove puts a livelier iris around his neck, and
+practises fantastic bows and amourous quicksteps along the verandah
+of the pigeon-house and on every convenient roof.  The young male of
+the human species, less gifted in the matter of rainbows, does his
+best with a gay cravat, and turns the thoughts which circulate above
+it towards the securing or propitiating of a best girl.
+
+The objects of these more or less brilliant attentions, doves and
+girls, show a becoming reciprocity, and act in a way which leads us
+to infer (so far as inferences hold good in the mysterious region of
+female conduct) that they are not seriously displeased.  To a
+rightly tempered mind, pleasure is a pleasant sight.  And the
+philosophic observer who could look upon this spring spectacle of
+the lovers with any but friendly feelings would be indeed what the
+great Dr. Samuel Johnson called "a person not to be envied."
+
+Far be it from me to fall into such a desiccated and supercilious
+mood.  My small olive-branch of fancy will be withered, in truth,
+and ready to drop budless from the tree, when I cease to feel a mild
+delight in the billings and cooings of the little birds that
+separate from the flocks to fly together in pairs, or in the
+uninstructive but mutually satisfactory converse which Strephon
+holds with Chloe while they dally along the primrose path.
+
+I am glad that even the stony and tumultuous city affords some
+opportunities for these amiable observations.  In the month of April
+there is hardly a clump of shrubbery in the Central Park which will
+not serve as a trysting-place for yellow warblers and catbirds just
+home from their southern tours.  At the same time, you shall see
+many a bench, designed for the accommodation of six persons,
+occupied at the sunset hour by only two, and apparently so much too
+small for them that they cannot avoid a little crowding.
+
+These are infallible signs.  Taken in conjunction with the eruption
+of tops and marbles among the small boys, and the purchase of
+fishing-tackle and golf-clubs by the old boys, they certify us that
+the vernal equinox has arrived, not only in the celestial regions,
+but also in the heart of man.
+
+
+I have been reflecting of late upon the relation of lovers to the
+landscape, and questioning whether art has given it quite the same
+place as that which belongs to it in nature.  In fiction, for
+example, and in the drama, and in music, I have some vague
+misgivings that romantic love has come to hold a more prominent and
+a more permanent position than it fills in real life.
+
+This is dangerous ground to venture upon, even in the most modest
+and deprecatory way.  The man who expresses an opinion, or even a
+doubt, on this subject, contrary to the ruling traditions, will have
+a swarm of angry critics buzzing about him.  He will be called a
+heretic, a heathen, a cold-blooded freak of nature.  As for the
+woman who hesitates to subscribe all the thirty-nine articles of
+romantic love, if such a one dares to put her reluctance into words,
+she is certain to be accused either of unwomanly ambition or of
+feminine disappointment.
+
+Let us make haste, then, to get back for safety to the
+ornithological aspect of the subject.  Here there can be no
+penalties for heresy.  And here I make bold to avow my conviction
+that the pairing season is not the only point of interest in the
+life of the birds; nor is the instinct by which they mate altogether
+and beyond comparison the noblest passion that stirs their feathered
+breasts.
+
+'T is true, the time of mating is their prettiest season; but it is
+very short.  How little we should know of the drama of their airy
+life if we had eyes only for this brief scene!  Their finest
+qualities come out in the patient cares that protect the young in
+the nest, in the varied struggles for existence through the changing
+year, and in the incredible heroisms of the annual migrations.
+Herein is a parable.
+
+It may be observed further, without fear of rebuke, that the
+behaviour of the different kinds of birds during the prevalence of
+romantic love is not always equally above reproach.  The courtship
+of English sparrows--blustering, noisy, vulgar--is a sight to offend
+the taste of every gentle on-looker.  Some birds reiterate and
+vociferate their love-songs in a fashion that displays their
+inconsiderateness as well as their ignorance of music.  This trait
+is most marked in domestic fowls.  There was a guinea-cock, once,
+that chose to do his wooing close under the window of a farm-house
+where I was lodged.  He had no regard for my hours of sleep or
+meditation.  His amatory click-clack prevented the morning and
+wrecked the tranquillity of the evening.  It was odious, brutal,--
+worse, it was absolutely thoughtless.  Herein is another parable.
+
+Let us admit cheerfully that lovers have a place in the landscape
+and lend a charm to it.  This does not mean that they are to take up
+all the room there is.  Suppose, for example, that a pair of them,
+on Goat Island, put themselves in such a position as to completely
+block out your view of Niagara.  You cannot regard them with
+gratitude.  They even become a little tedious.  Or suppose that you
+are visiting at a country-house, and you find that you must not
+enjoy the moonlight on the verandah because Augustus and Amanda are
+murmuring in one corner, and that you must not go into the garden
+because Louis and Lizzie are there, and that you cannot have a sail
+on the lake because Richard and Rebecca have taken the boat.
+
+Of course, unless you happen to be a selfish old curmudgeon, you
+rejoice, by sympathy, in the happiness of these estimable young
+people.  But you fail to see why it should cover so much ground.
+
+Why should they not pool their interests, and all go out in the
+boat, or all walk in the garden, or all sit on the verandah?  Then
+there would be room for somebody else about the place.
+
+In old times you could rely upon lovers for retirement.  But
+nowadays their role seems to be a bold ostentation of their
+condition.  They rely upon other people to do the timid, shrinking
+part.  Society, in America, is arranged principally for their
+convenience; and whatever portion of the landscape strikes their
+fancy, they preempt and occupy.  All this goes upon the presumption
+that romantic love is really the only important interest in life.
+
+This train of thought was illuminated, the other night, by an
+incident which befell me at a party.  It was an assembly of men,
+drawn together by their common devotion to the sport of canoeing.
+There were only three or four of the gentler sex present (as
+honorary members), and only one of whom it could be suspected that
+she was at that time a victim or an object of the tender passion.
+In the course of the evening, by way of diversion to our
+disputations on keels and centreboards, canvas and birch-bark,
+cedar-wood and bass-wood, paddles and steering-gear, a fine young
+Apollo, with a big, manly voice, sang us a few songs.  But he did
+not chant the joys of weathering a sudden squall, or running a rapid
+feather-white with foam, or floating down a long, quiet, elm-bowered
+river.  Not all.  His songs were full of sighs and yearnings,
+languid lips and sheep's-eyes.  His powerful voice informed us that
+crowns of thorns seemed like garlands of roses, and kisses were as
+sweet as samples of heaven, and various other curious sensations
+were experienced; and at the end of every stanza the reason was
+stated, in tones of thunder--
+
+
+     "Because I love you, dear."
+
+
+Even if true, it seemed inappropriate.  How foolish the average
+audience in a drawing-room looks while it is listening to passionate
+love-ditties!  And yet I suppose the singer chose these songs, not
+from any malice aforethought, but simply because songs of this kind
+are so abundant that it is next to impossible to find anything else
+in the shops.
+
+In regard to novels, the situation is almost as discouraging.  Ten
+love-stories are printed to one of any other kind.  We have a
+standing invitation to consider the tribulations and difficulties of
+some young man or young woman in finding a mate.  It must be
+admitted that the subject has its capabilities of interest.  Nature
+has her uses for the lover, and she gives him an excellent part to
+play in the drama of life.  But is this tantamount to saying that
+his interest is perennial and all-absorbing, and that his role on
+the stage is the only one that is significant and noteworthy?
+
+Life is much too large to be expressed in the terms of a single
+passion.  Friendship, patriotism, parental tenderness, filial
+devotion, the ardour of adventure, the thirst for knowledge, the
+ecstasy of religion,--these all have their dwelling in the heart of
+man.  They mould character.  They control conduct.  They are stars
+of destiny shining in the inner firmament.  And if art would truly
+hold the mirror up to nature, it must reflect these greater and
+lesser lights that rule the day and the night.
+
+How many of the plays that divert and misinform the modern theatre-
+goer turn on the pivot of a love-affair, not always pure, but
+generally simple!  And how many of those that are imported from
+France proceed upon the theory that the Seventh is the only
+Commandment, and that the principal attraction of life lies in the
+opportunity of breaking it!  The matinee-girl is not likely to have
+a very luminous or truthful idea of existence floating around in her
+pretty little head.
+
+But, after all, the great plays, those that take the deepest hold
+upon the heart, like HAMLET and KING LEAR, MACBETH and OTHELLO, are
+not love-plays.  And the most charming comedies, like THE WINTER'S
+TALE, and THE RIVALS, and RIP VAN WINKLE, are chiefly memorable for
+other things than love-scenes.
+
+Even in novels, love shows at its best when it does not absorb the
+whole plot.  LORNA DOONE is a lovers' story, but there is a blessed
+minimum of spooning in it, and always enough of working and fighting
+to keep the air clear and fresh.  THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, and
+HYPATIA, and ROMOLA, and THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH, and JOHN
+INGLESANT, and THE THREE MUSKETEERS, and NOTRE DAME, and PEACE AND
+WAR, and QUO VADIS,--these are great novels because they are much
+more than tales of romantic love.  As for HENRY ESMOND, (which seems
+to me the best of all,) certainly "love at first sight" does not
+play the finest role in that book.
+
+There are good stories of our own day--pathetic, humourous,
+entertaining, powerful--in which the element of romantic love is
+altogether subordinate, or even imperceptible.  THE RISE OF SILAS
+LAPHAM does not owe its deep interest to the engagement of the very
+charming young people who enliven it.  MADAME DELPHINE and OLE
+'STRACTED are perfect stories of their kind.  I would not barter THE
+JUNGLE BOOKS for a hundred of THE BRUSHWOOD BOY.
+
+The truth is that love, considered merely as the preference of one
+person for another of the opposite sex, is not "the greatest thing
+in the world."  It becomes great only when it leads on, as it often
+does, to heroism and self-sacrifice and fidelity.  Its chief value
+for art (the interpreter) lies not in itself, but in its quickening
+relation to the other elements of life.  It must be seen and shown
+in its due proportion, and in harmony with the broader landscape.
+
+Do you believe that in all the world there is only one woman
+specially created for each man, and that the order of the universe
+will be hopelessly askew unless these two needles find each other in
+the haystack?  You believe it for yourself, perhaps; but do you
+believe it for Tom Johnson?  You remember what a terrific
+disturbance he made in the summer of 189-, at Bar Harbor, about
+Ellinor Brown, and how he ran away with her in September.  You have
+also seen them together (occasionally) at Lenox and Newport, since
+their marriage.  Are you honestly of the opinion that if Tom had not
+married Ellinor, these two young lives would have been a total
+wreck?
+
+Adam Smith, in his book on THE MORAL SENTIMENTS, goes so far as to
+say that "love is not interesting to the observer because it is AN
+AFFECTION OF THE IMAGINATION, into which it is difficult for a third
+party to enter."  Something of the same kind occurred to me in
+regard to Tom and Ellinor.  Yet I would not have presumed to suggest
+this thought to either of them.  Nor would I have quoted in their
+hearing the melancholy and frigid prediction of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
+to the effect that they would some day discover "that all which at
+first drew them together--those once sacred features, that magical
+play of charm--was deciduous."
+
+DECIDUOUS, indeed?  Cold, unpleasant, botanical word!  Rather would
+I prognosticate for the lovers something perennial,
+
+
+     "A sober certainty of waking bliss,"
+
+
+to survive the evanescence of love's young dream.  Ellinor should
+turn out to be a woman like the Lady Elizabeth Hastings, of whom
+Richard Steele wrote that "to love her was a liberal education."
+Tom should prove that he had in him the lasting stuff of a true man
+and a hero.  Then it would make little difference whether their
+conjunction had been eternally prescribed in the book of fate or
+not.  It would be evidently a fit match, made on earth and
+illustrative of heaven.
+
+But even in the making of such a match as this, the various stages
+of attraction, infatuation, and appropriation should not be
+displayed too prominently before the world, nor treated as events of
+overwhelming importance and enduring moment.  I would not counsel
+Tom and Ellinor, in the midsummer of their engagement, to have their
+photographs taken together in affectionate attitudes.
+
+The pictures of an imaginary kind which deal with the subject of
+romantic love are, almost without exception, fatuous and futile.
+The inanely amatory, with their languishing eyes, weary us.  The
+endlessly osculatory, with their protracted salutations, are
+sickening.  Even when an air of sentimental propriety is thrown
+about them by some such title as "Wedded" or "The Honeymoon," they
+fatigue us.  For the most part, they remind me of the remark which
+the Commodore made upon a certain painting of Jupiter and lo which
+hangs in the writing-room of the Contrary Club.
+
+"Sir," said that gently piercing critic, "that picture is equally
+unsatisfactory to the artist, to the moralist, and to the
+voluptuary."
+
+
+Nevertheless, having made a clean breast of my misgivings and
+reservations on the subject of lovers and landscape, I will now
+confess that the whole of my doubts do not weigh much against my
+unreasoned faith in romantic love.  At heart I am no infidel, but a
+most obstinate believer and devotee.  My seasons of skepticism are
+transient.  They are connected with a torpid liver and aggravated by
+confinement to a sedentary life and enforced abstinence from
+angling.  Out-of-doors, I return to a saner and happier frame of
+mind.
+
+As my wheel rolls along the Riverside Drive in the golden glow of
+the sunset, I rejoice that the episode of Charles Henry and Matilda
+Jane has not been omitted from the view.  This vast and populous
+city, with all its passing show of life, would be little better than
+a waste, howling wilderness if we could not catch a glimpse, now and
+then, of young people falling in love in the good old-fashioned way.
+Even on a trout-stream, I have seen nothing prettier than the sight
+upon which I once came suddenly as I was fishing down the Neversink.
+
+A boy was kneeling beside the brook, and a girl was giving him a
+drink of water out of her rosy hands.  They stared with wonder and
+compassion at the wet and solitary angler, wading down the stream,
+as if he were some kind of a mild lunatic.  But as I glanced
+discreetly at their small tableau, I was not unconscious of the new
+joy that came into the landscape with the presence of
+
+
+     "A lover and his lass."
+
+
+I knew how sweet the water tasted from that kind of a cup.  I also
+have lived in Arcadia, and have not forgotten the way back.
+
+
+
+A FATAL SUCCESS
+
+
+"What surprises me in her behaviour," said he, "is its thoroughness.
+Woman seldom does things by halves, but often by doubles."--SOLOMON
+SINGLEWITZ: The Life of Adam.
+
+
+Beekman De Peyster was probably the most passionate and triumphant
+fisherman in the Petrine Club.  He angled with the same dash and
+confidence that he threw into his operations in the stock-market.
+He was sure to be the first man to get his flies on the water at the
+opening of the season.  And when we came together for our fall
+meeting, to compare notes of our wanderings on various streams and
+make up the fish-stories for the year, Beekman was almost always
+"high hook."  We expected, as a matter of course, to hear that he
+had taken the most and the largest fish.
+
+It was so with everything that he undertook.  He was a masterful
+man.  If there was an unusually large trout in a river, Beekman knew
+about it before any one else, and got there first, and came home
+with the fish.  It did not make him unduly proud, because there was
+nothing uncommon about it.  It was his habit to succeed, and all the
+rest of us were hardened to it.
+
+When he married Cornelia Cochrane, we were consoled for our partial
+loss by the apparent fitness and brilliancy of the match.  If
+Beekman was a masterful man, Cornelia was certainly what you might
+call a mistressful woman.  She had been the head of her house since
+she was eighteen years old.  She carried her good looks like the
+family plate; and when she came into the breakfast-room and said
+good-morning, it was with an air as if she presented every one with
+a check for a thousand dollars.  Her tastes were accepted as
+judgments, and her preferences had the force of laws.  Wherever she
+wanted to go in the summer-time, there the finger of household
+destiny pointed.  At Newport, at Bar Harbour, at Lenox, at
+Southampton, she made a record.  When she was joined in holy wedlock
+to Beekman De Peyster, her father and mother heaved a sigh of
+satisfaction, and settled down for a quiet vacation in Cherry
+Valley.
+
+It was in the second summer after the wedding that Beekman admitted
+to a few of his ancient Petrine cronies, in moments of confidence
+(unjustifiable, but natural), that his wife had one fault.
+
+"It is not exactly a fault," he said, "not a positive fault, you
+know.  It is just a kind of a defect, due to her education, of
+course.  In everything else she's magnificent.  But she does n't
+care for fishing.  She says it's stupid,--can't see why any one
+should like the woods,--calls camping out the lunatic's diversion.
+It's rather awkward for a man with my habits to have his wife take
+such a view.  But it can be changed by training.  I intend to
+educate her and convert her.  I shall make an angler of her yet."
+
+And so he did.
+
+The new education was begun in the Adirondacks, and the first lesson
+was given at Paul Smith's.  It was a complete failure.
+
+Beekman persuaded her to come out with him for a day on Meacham
+River, and promised to convince her of the charm of angling.  She
+wore a new gown, fawn-colour and violet, with a picture-hat, very
+taking.  But the Meacham River trout was shy that day; not even
+Beekman could induce him to rise to the fly.  What the trout lacked
+in confidence the mosquitoes more than made up.  Mrs. De Peyster
+came home much sunburned, and expressed a highly unfavourable
+opinion of fishing as an amusement and of Meacham River as a resort.
+
+"The nice people don't come to the Adirondacks to fish," said she;
+"they come to talk about the fishing twenty years ago.  Besides,
+what do you want to catch that trout for?  If you do, the other men
+will say you bought it, and the hotel will have to put in a new one
+for the rest of the season."
+
+The following year Beekman tried Moosehead Lake.  Here he found an
+atmosphere more favourable to his plan of education.  There were a
+good many people who really fished, and short expeditions in the
+woods were quite fashionable.  Cornelia had a camping-costume of the
+most approved style made by Dewlap on Fifth Avenue,--pearl-gray with
+linings of rose-silk,--and consented to go with her husband on a
+trip up Moose River.  They pitched their tent the first evening at
+the mouth of Misery Stream, and a storm came on.  The rain sifted
+through the canvas in a fine spray, and Mrs. De Peyster sat up all
+night in a waterproof cloak, holding an umbrella.  The next day they
+were back at the hotel in time for lunch.
+
+"It was horrid," she told her most intimate friend, "perfectly
+horrid.  The idea of sleeping in a shower-bath, and eating your
+breakfast from a tin plate, just for sake of catching a few silly
+fish!  Why not send your guides out to get them for you?"
+
+But, in spite of this profession of obstinate heresy, Beekman
+observed with secret joy that there were signs, before the end of
+the season, that Cornelia was drifting a little, a very little but
+still perceptibly, in the direction of a change of heart.  She began
+to take an interest, as the big trout came along in September, in
+the reports of the catches made by the different anglers.  She would
+saunter out with the other people to the corner of the porch to see
+the fish weighed and spread out on the grass.  Several times she
+went with Beekman in the canoe to Hardscrabble Point, and showed
+distinct evidences of pleasure when he caught large trout.  The last
+day of the season, when he returned from a successful expedition to
+Roach River and Lily Bay, she inquired with some particularity about
+the results of his sport; and in the evening, as the company sat
+before the great open fire in the hall of the hotel, she was heard
+to use this information with considerable skill in putting down Mrs.
+Minot Peabody of Boston, who was recounting the details of her
+husband's catch at Spencer Pond.  Cornelia was not a person to be
+contented with the back seat, even in fish-stories.
+
+When Beekman observed these indications he was much encouraged, and
+resolved to push his educational experiment briskly forward to his
+customary goal of success.
+
+"Some things can be done, as well as others," he said in his
+masterful way, as three of us were walking home together after the
+autumnal dinner of the Petrine Club, which he always attended as a
+graduate member.  "A real fisherman never gives up.  I told you I'd
+make an angler out of my wife; and so I will.  It has been rather
+difficult.  She is 'dour' in rising.  But she's beginning to take
+notice of the fly now.  Give me another season, and I'll have her
+landed."
+
+Good old Beekman!  Little did he think--  But I must not interrupt
+the story with moral reflections.
+
+The preparations that he made for his final effort at conversion
+were thorough and prudent.  He had a private interview with Dewlap
+in regard to the construction of a practical fishing-costume for a
+lady, which resulted in something more reasonable and workmanlike
+than had ever been turned out by that famous artist.  He ordered
+from Hook and Catchett a lady's angling-outfit of the most enticing
+description,--a split-bamboo rod, light as a girl's wish, and strong
+as a matron's will; an oxidized silver reel, with a monogram on one
+side, and a sapphire set in the handle for good luck; a book of
+flies, of all sizes and colours, with the correct names inscribed in
+gilt letters on each page.  He surrounded his favourite sport with
+an aureole of elegance and beauty.  And then he took Cornelia in
+September to the Upper Dam at Rangeley.
+
+She went reluctant.  She arrived disgusted.  She stayed incredulous.
+She returned--  Wait a bit, and you shall hear how she returned.
+
+The Upper Dam at Rangeley is the place, of all others in the world,
+where the lunacy of angling may be seen in its incurable stage.
+There is a cosy little inn, called a camp, at the foot of a big
+lake.  In front of the inn is a huge dam of gray stone, over which
+the river plunges into a great oval pool, where the trout assemble
+in the early fall to perpetuate their race.  From the tenth of
+September to the thirtieth, there is not an hour of the day or night
+when there are no boats floating on that pool, and no anglers
+trailing the fly across its waters.  Before the late fishermen are
+ready to come in at midnight, the early fishermen may be seen
+creeping down to the shore with lanterns in order to begin before
+cock-crow.  The number of fish taken is not large,--perhaps five or
+six for the whole company on an average day,--but the size is
+sometimes enormous,--nothing under three pounds is counted,--and
+they pervade thought and conversation at the Upper Dam to the
+exclusion of every other subject.  There is no driving, no dancing,
+no golf, no tennis.  There is nothing to do but fish or die.
+
+At first, Cornelia thought she would choose the latter alternative.
+But a remark of that skilful and morose old angler, McTurk, which
+she overheard on the verandah after supper, changed her mind.
+
+"Women have no sporting instinct," said he.  "They only fish because
+they see men doing it.  They are imitative animals."
+
+That same night she told Beekman, in the subdued tone which the
+architectural construction of the house imposes upon all
+confidential communications in the bedrooms, but with resolution in
+every accent, that she proposed to go fishing with him on the
+morrow.
+
+"But not on that pool, right in front of the house, you understand.
+There must be some other place, out on the lake, where we can fish
+for three or four days, until I get the trick of this wobbly rod.
+Then I'll show that old bear, McTurk, what kind of an animal woman
+is."
+
+Beekman was simply delighted.  Five days of diligent practice at the
+mouth of Mill Brook brought his pupil to the point where he
+pronounced her safe.
+
+"Of course," he said patronizingly, "you have 'nt learned all about
+it yet.  That will take years.  But you can get your fly out thirty
+feet, and you can keep the tip of your rod up.  If you do that, the
+trout will hook himself, in rapid water, eight times out of ten.
+For playing him, if you follow my directions, you 'll be all right.
+We will try the pool tonight, and hope for a medium-sized fish."
+
+Cornelia said nothing, but smiled and nodded.  She had her own
+thoughts.
+
+At about nine o'clock Saturday night, they anchored their boat on
+the edge of the shoal where the big eddy swings around, put out the
+lantern and began to fish.  Beekman sat in the bow of the boat, with
+his rod over the left side; Cornelia in the stern, with her rod over
+the right side.  The night was cloudy and very black.  Each of them
+had put on the largest possible fly, one a "Bee-Pond" and the other
+a "Dragon;" but even these were invisible.  They measured out the
+right length of line, and let the flies drift back until they hung
+over the shoal, in the curly water where the two currents meet.
+
+There were three other boats to the left of them.  McTurk was their
+only neighbour in the darkness on the right.  Once they heard him
+swearing softly to himself, and knew that he had hooked and lost a
+fish.
+
+Away down at the tail of the pool, dimly visible through the gloom,
+the furtive fisherman, Parsons, had anchored his boat.  No noise
+ever came from that craft.  If he wished to change his position, he
+did not pull up the anchor and let it down again with a bump.  He
+simply lengthened or shortened his anchor rope.  There was no click
+of the reel when he played a fish.  He drew in and paid out the line
+through the rings by hand, without a sound.  What he thought when a
+fish got away, no one knew, for he never said it.  He concealed his
+angling as if it had been a conspiracy.  Twice that night they heard
+a faint splash in the water near his boat, and twice they saw him
+put his arm over the side in the darkness and bring it back again
+very quietly.
+
+"That's the second fish for Parsons," whispered Beekman, "what a
+secretive old Fortunatus he is!  He knows more about fishing than
+any man on the pool, and talks less."
+
+Cornelia did not answer.  Her thoughts were all on the tip of her
+own rod.  About eleven o'clock a fine, drizzling rain set in.  The
+fishing was very slack.  All the other boats gave it up in despair;
+but Cornelia said she wanted to stay out a little longer, they might
+as well finish up the week.
+
+At precisely fifty minutes past eleven, Beekman reeled up his line,
+and remarked with firmness that the holy Sabbath day was almost at
+hand and they ought to go in.
+
+"Not till I 've landed this trout," said Cornelia.
+
+"What?  A trout!  Have you got one?"
+
+"Certainly; I 've had him on for at least fifteen minutes.  I 'm
+playing him Mr. Parsons' way.  You might as well light the lantern
+and get the net ready; he's coming in towards the boat now."
+
+Beekman broke three matches before he made the lantern burn; and
+when he held it up over the gunwale, there was the trout sure
+enough, gleaming ghostly pale in the dark water, close to the boat,
+and quite tired out.  He slipped the net over the fish and drew it
+in,--a monster.
+
+"I 'll carry that trout, if you please," said Cornelia, as they
+stepped out of the boat; and she walked into the camp, on the last
+stroke of midnight, with the fish in her hand, and quietly asked for
+the steelyard.
+
+Eight pounds and fourteen ounces,--that was the weight.  Everybody
+was amazed.  It was the "best fish" of the year.  Cornelia showed no
+sign of exultation, until just as John was carrying the trout to the
+ice-house.  Then she flashed out:--"Quite a fair imitation, Mr.
+McTurk,--is n't it?"
+
+Now McTurk's best record for the last fifteen years was seven pounds
+and twelve ounces.
+
+So far as McTurk is concerned, this is the end of the story.  But
+not for the De Peysters.  I wish it were.  Beekman went to sleep
+that night with a contented spirit.  He felt that his experiment in
+education had been a success.  He had made his wife an angler.
+
+He had indeed, and to an extent which he little suspected.  That
+Upper Dam trout was to her like the first taste of blood to the
+tiger.  It seemed to change, at once, not so much her character as
+the direction of her vital energy.  She yielded to the lunacy of
+angling, not by slow degrees, (as first a transient delusion, then a
+fixed idea, then a chronic infirmity, finally a mild insanity,) but
+by a sudden plunge into the most violent mania.  So far from being
+ready to die at Upper Dam, her desire now was to live there--and to
+live solely for the sake of fishing--as long as the season was open.
+
+There were two hundred and forty hours left to midnight on the
+thirtieth of September.  At least two hundred of these she spent on
+the pool; and when Beekman was too exhausted to manage the boat and
+the net and the lantern for her, she engaged a trustworthy guide to
+take Beekman's place while he slept.  At the end of the last day her
+score was twenty-three, with an average of five pounds and a
+quarter.  His score was nine, with an average of four pounds.  He
+had succeeded far beyond his wildest hopes.
+
+The next year his success became even more astonishing.  They went
+to the Titan Club in Canada.  The ugliest and most inaccessible
+sheet of water in that territory is Lake Pharaoh.  But it is famous
+for the extraordinary fishing at a certain spot near the outlet,
+where there is just room enough for one canoe.  They camped on Lake
+Pharaoh for six weeks, by Mrs. De Peyster's command; and her canoe
+was always the first to reach the fishing-ground in the morning, and
+the last to leave it in the evening.
+
+Some one asked him, when he returned to the city, whether he had
+good luck.
+
+"Quite fair," he tossed off in a careless way; "we took over three
+hundred pounds."
+
+"To your own rod?" asked the inquirer, in admiration.
+
+"No-o-o," said Beekman, "there were two of us."
+
+There were two of them, also, the following year, when they joined
+the Natasheebo Salmon Club and fished that celebrated river in
+Labrador.  The custom of drawing lots every night for the water that
+each member was to angle over the next day, seemed to be especially
+designed to fit the situation.  Mrs. De Peyster could fish her own
+pool and her husband's too.  The result of that year's fishing was
+something phenomenal.  She had a score that made a paragraph in the
+newspapers and called out editorial comment.  One editor was so
+inadequate to the situation as to entitle the article in which he
+described her triumph "The Equivalence of Woman."  It was well-
+meant, but she was not at all pleased with it.
+
+She was now not merely an angler, but a "record" angler of the most
+virulent type.  Wherever they went, she wanted, and she got, the
+pick of the water.  She seemed to be equally at home on all kinds of
+streams, large and small.  She would pursue the little mountain-
+brook trout in the early spring, and the Labrador salmon in July,
+and the huge speckled trout of the northern lakes in September, with
+the same avidity and resolution.  All that she cared for was to get
+the best and the most of the fishing at each place where she angled.
+This she always did.
+
+And Beekman,--well, for him there were no more long separations from
+the partner of his life while he went off to fish some favourite
+stream.  There were no more home-comings after a good day's sport to
+find her clad in cool and dainty raiment on the verandah, ready to
+welcome him with friendly badinage.  There was not even any casting
+of the fly around Hardscrabble Point while she sat in the canoe
+reading a novel, looking up with mild and pleasant interest when he
+caught a larger fish than usual, as an older and wiser person looks
+at a child playing some innocent game.  Those days of a divided
+interest between man and wife were gone.  She was now fully
+converted, and more.  Beekman and Cornelia were one; and she was the
+one.
+
+The last time I saw the De Peysters he was following her along the
+Beaverkill, carrying a landing-net and a basket, but no rod.  She
+paused for a moment to exchange greetings, and then strode on down
+the stream.  He lingered for a few minutes longer to light a pipe.
+
+"Well, old man," I said, "you certainly have succeeded in making an
+angler of Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"Yes, indeed," he answered,--"have n't I?"  Then he continued, after
+a few thoughtful puffs of smoke, "Do you know, I 'm not quite so
+sure as I used to be that fishing is the best of all sports.  I
+sometimes think of giving it up and going in for croquet."
+
+
+
+FISHING IN BOOKS
+
+
+"SIMPSON.--Have you ever seen any American books on angling, Fisher?"
+"FISHER.--No, I do not think there are any published.  Brother
+Jonathan is not yet sufficiently civilized to produce anything
+original on the gentle art.  There is good trout-fishing in America,
+and the streams, which are all free, are much less fished than in
+our Island, 'from the small number of gentlemen,' as an American
+writer says, 'who are at leisure to give their time to it.'"
+--WILLIAM ANDREW CHATTO: The Angler's Souvenir (London, 1835).
+
+
+That wise man and accomplished scholar, Sir Henry Wotton, the friend
+of Izaak Walton and ambassador of King James I to the republic of
+Venice, was accustomed to say that "he would rather live five May
+months than forty Decembers."  The reason for this preference was no
+secret to those who knew him.  It had nothing to do with British or
+Venetian politics.  It was simply because December, with all its
+domestic joys, is practically a dead month in the angler's calendar.
+
+His occupation is gone.  The better sort of fish are out of season.
+The trout are lean and haggard: it is no trick to catch them and no
+treat to eat them.  The salmon, all except the silly kelts, have run
+out to sea, and the place of their habitation no man knoweth.  There
+is nothing for the angler to do but wait for the return of spring,
+and meanwhile encourage and sustain his patience with such small
+consolations in kind as a friendly Providence may put within his
+reach.
+
+
+Some solace may be found, on a day of crisp, wintry weather, in the
+childish diversion of catching pickerel through the ice.  This
+method of taking fish is practised on a large scale and with
+elaborate machinery by men who supply the market.  I speak not of
+their commercial enterprise and its gross equipage, but of ice-
+fishing in its more sportive and desultory form, as it is pursued by
+country boys and the incorrigible village idler.
+
+You choose for this pastime a pond where the ice is not too thick,
+lest the labour of cutting through should be discouraging; nor too
+thin, lest the chance of breaking in should be embarrassing.  You
+then chop out, with almost any kind of a hatchet or pick, a number
+of holes in the ice, making each one six or eight inches in
+diameter, and placing them about five or six feet apart.  If you
+happen to know the course of a current flowing through the pond, or
+the location of a shoal frequented by minnows, you will do well to
+keep near it.  Over each hole you set a small contrivance called a
+"tilt-up."  It consists of two sticks fastened in the middle, at
+right angles to each other.  The stronger of the two is laid across
+the opening in the ice.  The other is thus balanced above the
+aperture, with a baited hook and line attached to one end, while the
+other end is adorned with a little flag.  For choice, I would have
+the flags red.  They look gayer, and I imagine they are more lucky.
+
+When you have thus baited and set your tilt-ups,--twenty or thirty
+of them,--you may put on your skates and amuse yourself by gliding
+to and fro on the smooth surface of the ice, cutting figures of
+eight and grapevines and diamond twists, while you wait for the
+pickerel to begin their part of the performance.  They will let you
+know when they are ready.
+
+A fish, swimming around in the dim depths under the ice, sees one of
+your baits, fancies it, and takes it in.  The moment he tries to run
+away with it he tilts the little red flag into the air and waves it
+backward and forward.  "Be quick!" he signals all unconsciously;
+"here I am; come and pull me up!"
+
+When two or three flags are fluttering at the same moment, far apart
+on the pond, you must skate with speed and haul in your lines
+promptly.
+
+How hard it is, sometimes, to decide which one you will take first!
+That flag in the middle of the pond has been waving for at least a
+minute; but the other, in the corner of the bay, is tilting up and
+down more violently: it must be a larger fish.  Great Dagon! There's
+another red signal flying, away over by the point!  You hesitate,
+you make a few strokes in one direction, then you whirl around and
+dart the other way.  Meantime one of the tilt-ups, constructed with
+too short a cross-stick, has been pulled to one side, and disappears
+in the hole.  One pickerel in the pond carries a flag.  Another
+tilt-up ceases to move and falls flat upon the ice.  The bait has
+been stolen.  You dash desperately toward the third flag and pull in
+the only fish that is left,--probably the smallest of them all!
+
+A surplus of opportunities does not insure the best luck.
+
+A room with seven doors--like the famous apartment in Washington's
+headquarters at Newburgh--is an invitation to bewilderment.  I would
+rather see one fair opening in life than be confused by three
+dazzling chances.
+
+There was a good story about fishing through the ice which formed
+part of the stock-in-conversation of that ingenious woodsman, Martin
+Moody, Esquire, of Big Tupper Lake.  "'T was a blame cold day," he
+said, "and the lines friz up stiffer 'n a fence-wire, jus' as fast
+as I pulled 'em in, and my fingers got so dum' frosted I could n't
+bait the hooks.  But the fish was thicker and hungrier 'n flies in
+June.  So I jus' took a piece of bait and held it over one o' the
+holes.  Every time a fish jumped up to git it, I 'd kick him out on
+the ice.  I tell ye, sir, I kicked out more 'n four hundred pounds
+of pick'rel that morning.  Yaas, 't was a big lot, I 'low, but then
+'t was a cold day!  I jus' stacked 'em up solid, like cordwood."
+
+Let us now leave this frigid subject!  Iced fishing is but a
+chilling and unsatisfactory imitation of real sport.  The angler
+will soon turn from it with satiety, and seek a better consolation
+for the winter of his discontent in the entertainment of fishing in
+books.
+
+
+Angling is the only sport that boasts the honour of having given a
+classic to literature.
+
+Izaak Walton's success with THE COMPLEAT ANGLER was a fine
+illustration of fisherman's luck.  He set out, with some aid from an
+adept in fly-fishing and cookery, named Thomas Barker, to produce a
+little "discourse of fish and fishing" which should serve as a
+useful manual for quiet persons inclined to follow the contemplative
+man's recreation.  He came home with a book which has made his name
+beloved by ten generations of gentle readers, and given him a secure
+place in the Pantheon of letters,--not a haughty eminence, but a
+modest niche, all his own, and ever adorned with grateful offerings
+of fresh flowers.
+
+This was great luck.  But it was well-deserved, and therefore it has
+not been grudged or envied.
+
+Walton was a man so peaceful and contented, so friendly in his
+disposition, and so innocent in all his goings, that only three
+other writers, so far as I know, have ever spoken ill of him.
+
+One was that sour-complexioned Cromwellian trooper, Richard Franck,
+who wrote in 1658 an envious book entitled NORTHERN MEMOIRS,
+CALCULATED FOR THE MERIDIAN OF SCOTLAND, ETC., TO WHICH IS ADDED THE
+CONTEMPLATIVE AND PRACTICAL ANGLER.  In this book the furious Franck
+first pays Walton the flattery of imitation, and then further adorns
+him with abuse, calling THE COMPLEAT ANGLER "an indigested octavo,
+stuffed with morals from Dubravius and others," and more than
+hinting that the father of anglers knew little or nothing of "his
+uncultivated art."  Walton was a Churchman and a Loyalist, you see,
+while Franck was a Commonwealth man and an Independent.
+
+The second detractor of Walton was Lord Byron, who wrote
+
+
+     "The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb in his gullet
+      Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it."
+
+
+But Byron is certainly a poor authority on the quality of mercy.
+His contempt need not cause an honest man overwhelming distress.  I
+should call it a complimentary dislike.
+
+The third author who expressed unpleasant sentiments in regard to
+Walton was Leigh Hunt.  Here, again, I fancy that partizan prejudice
+had something to do with the dislike.  Hunt was a radical in
+politics and religion.  Moreover there was a feline strain in his
+character, which made it necessary for him to scratch somebody now
+and then, as a relief to his feelings.
+
+Walton was a great quoter.  His book is not "stuffed," as Franck
+jealously alleged, but it is certainly well sauced with piquant
+references to other writers, as early as the author of the Book of
+Job, and as late as John Dennys, who betrayed to the world THE
+SECRETS OF ANGLING in 1613.  Walton further seasoned his book with
+fragments of information about fish and fishing, more or less
+apocryphal, gathered from Aelian, Pliny, Plutarch, Sir Francis
+Bacon, Dubravius, Gesner, Rondeletius, the learned Aldrovandus, the
+venerable Bede, the divine Du Bartas, and many others.  He borrowed
+freely for the adornment of his discourse, and did not scorn to make
+use of what may he called LIVE QUOTATIONS,--that is to say, the
+unpublished remarks of his near contemporaries, caught in friendly
+conversation, or handed down by oral tradition.
+
+But these various seasonings did not disguise, they only enhanced,
+the delicate flavour of the dish which he served up to his readers.
+This was all of his own taking, and of a sweetness quite
+incomparable.
+
+I like a writer who is original enough to water his garden with
+quotations, without fear of being drowned out.  Such men are Charles
+Lamb and James Russell Lowell and John Burroughs.
+
+Walton's book is as fresh as a handful of wild violets and sweet
+lavender.  It breathes the odours of the green fields and the woods.
+It tastes of simple, homely, appetizing things like the "syllabub of
+new verjuice in a new-made haycock" which the milkwoman promised to
+give Piscator the next time he came that way.  Its music plays the
+tune of A CONTENTED HEART over and over again without dulness, and
+charms us into harmony with
+
+
+     "A noise like the sound of a hidden brook
+      In the leafy month of June,
+      That to the sleeping woods all night
+      Singeth a quiet tune."
+
+
+Walton has been quoted even more than any of the writers whom he
+quotes.  It would be difficult, even if it were not ungrateful, to
+write about angling without referring to him.  Some pretty saying,
+some wise reflection from his pages, suggests itself at almost every
+turn of the subject.
+
+And yet his book, though it be the best, is not the only readable
+one that his favourite recreation has begotten.  The literature of
+angling is extensive, as any one may see who will look at the list
+of the collection presented by Mr. John Bartlett to Harvard
+University, or study the catalogue of the piscatorial library of Mr.
+Dean Sage, of Albany, who himself has contributed an admirable book
+on THE RISTIGOUCHE.
+
+Nor is this literature altogether composed of dry and technical
+treatises, interesting only to the confirmed anglimaniac, or to the
+young novice ardent in pursuit of practical information.  There is a
+good deal of juicy reading in it.
+
+
+Books about angling should be divided (according to De Quincey's
+method) into two classes,--the literature of knowledge, and the
+literature of power.
+
+The first class contains the handbooks on rods and tackle, the
+directions how to angle for different kinds of fish, and the guides
+to various fishing-resorts.  The weakness of these books is that
+they soon fall out of date, as the manufacture of tackle is
+improved, the art of angling refined, and the fish in once-famous
+waters are educated or exterminated.
+
+Alas, how transient is the fashion of this world, even in angling!
+The old manuals with their precise instruction for trimming and
+painting trout-rods eighteen feet long, and their painful
+description of "oyntments" made of nettle-juice, fish-hawk oil,
+camphor, cat's fat, or assafoedita, (supposed to allure the fish,)
+are altogether behind the age.  Many of the flies described by
+Charles Cotton and Thomas Barker seem to have gone out of style
+among the trout.  Perhaps familiarity has bred contempt.  Generation
+after generation of fish have seen these same old feathered
+confections floating on the water, and learned by sharp experience
+that they do not taste good.  The blase trout demand something new,
+something modern.  It is for this reason, I suppose, that an
+altogether original fly, unheard of, startling, will often do great
+execution in an over-fished pool.
+
+Certain it is that the art of angling, in settled regions, is
+growing more dainty and difficult.  You must cast a longer, lighter
+line; you must use finer leaders; you must have your flies dressed
+on smaller hooks.
+
+And another thing is certain: in many places (described in the
+ancient volumes) where fish were once abundant, they are now like
+the shipwrecked sailors in Vergil his Aeneid,--
+
+
+     "rari nantes in gurgite vasto."
+
+
+The floods themselves are also disappearing.  Mr. Edmund Clarence
+Stedman was telling me, the other day, of the trout-brook that used
+to run through the Connecticut village when he nourished a poet's
+youth.  He went back to visit the stream a few years since, and it
+was gone, literally vanished from the face of earth, stolen to make
+a watersupply for the town, and used for such base purposes as the
+washing of clothes and the sprinkling of streets.
+
+I remember an expedition with my father, some twenty years ago, to
+Nova Scotia, whither we set out to realize the hopes kindled by an
+ANGLER'S GUIDE written in the early sixties.  It was like looking
+for tall clocks in the farmhouses around Boston.  The harvest had
+been well gleaned before our arrival, and in the very place where
+our visionary author located his most famous catch we found a summer
+hotel and a sawmill.
+
+'T is strange and sad, how many regions there are where "the fishing
+was wonderful forty years ago"!
+
+
+The second class of angling books--the literature of power--includes
+all (even those written with some purpose of instruction) in which
+the gentle fascinations of the sport, the attractions of living out-
+of-doors, the beauties of stream and woodland, the recollections of
+happy adventure, and the cheerful thoughts that make the best of a
+day's luck, come clearly before the author's mind and find some fit
+expression in his words.  Of such books, thank Heaven, there is a
+plenty to bring a Maytide charm and cheer into the fisherman's dull
+December.  I will name, by way of random tribute from a grateful but
+unmethodical memory, a few of these consolatory volumes.
+
+First of all comes a family of books that were born in Scotland and
+smell of the heather.
+
+Whatever a Scotchman's conscience permits him to do, is likely to be
+done with vigour and a fiery mind.  In trade and in theology, in
+fishing and in fighting, he is all there and thoroughly kindled.
+
+There is an old-fashioned book called THE MOOR AND THE LOCH, by John
+Colquhoun, which is full of contagious enthusiasm.  Thomas Tod
+Stoddart was a most impassioned angler, (though over-given to strong
+language,) and in his ANGLING REMINISCENCES he has touched the
+subject with a happy hand,--happiest when he breaks into poetry and
+tosses out a song for the fisherman.  Professor John Wilson of the
+University of Edinburgh held the chair of Moral Philosophy in that
+institution, but his true fame rests on his well-earned titles of A.
+M. and F. R. S.,--Master of Angling, and Fisherman Royal of
+Scotland.  His RECREATIONS OF CHRISTOPHER NORTH, albeit their humour
+is sometimes too boisterously hammered in, are genial and generous
+essays, overflowing with passages of good-fellowship and pedestrian
+fancy.  I would recommend any person in a dry and melancholy state
+of mind to read his paper on "Streams," in the first volume of
+ESSAYS CRITICAL AND IMAGINATIVE.  But it must be said, by way of
+warning to those with whom dryness is a matter of principle, that
+all Scotch fishing-books are likely to be sprinkled with Highland
+Dew.
+
+Among English anglers, Sir Humphry Davy is one of whom Christopher
+North speaks rather slightingly.  Nevertheless his SALMONIA is well
+worth reading, not only because it was written by a learned man, but
+because it exhales the spirit of cheerful piety and vital wisdom.
+Charles Kingsley was another great man who wrote well about angling.
+His CHALK-STREAM STUDIES are clear and sparkling.  They cleanse the
+mind and refresh the heart and put us more in love with living.  Of
+quite a different style are the MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR AN ANGLER, AND
+MISERIES OF FISHING, which were written by Richard Penn, a grandson
+of the founder of Pennsylvania.  This is a curious and rare little
+volume, professing to be a compilation from the "Common Place Book
+of the Houghton Fishing Club," and dealing with the subject from a
+Pickwickian point of view.  I suppose that William Penn would have
+thought his grandson a frivolous writer.
+
+But he could not have entertained such an opinion of the Honourable
+Robert Boyle, of whose OCCASIONAL REFLECTIONS no less than twelve
+discourses treat "of Angling Improved to Spiritual Uses."  The
+titles of some of these discourses are quaint enough to quote.
+"Upon the being called upon to rise early on a very fair morning."
+"Upon the mounting, singing, and lighting of larks."  "Upon fishing
+with a counterfeit fly."  "Upon a danger arising from an
+unseasonable contest with the steersman."  "Upon one's drinking
+water out of the brim of his hat."  With such good texts it is easy
+to endure, and easier still to spare, the sermons.
+
+Englishmen carry their love of travel into their anglimania, and
+many of their books describe fishing adventures in foreign parts.
+RAMBLES WITH A FISHING-ROD, by E. S. Roscoe, tells of happy days in
+the Salzkammergut and the Bavarian Highlands and Normandy.  FISH-
+TAILS AND A FEW OTHERS, by Bradnock Hall, contains some delightful
+chapters on Norway.  THE ROD IN INDIA, by H. S. Thomas, narrates
+wonderful adventures with the Mahseer and the Rohu and other pagan
+fish.
+
+But, after all, I like the English angler best when he travels at
+home, and writes of dry-fly fishing in the Itchen or the Test, or of
+wet-fly fishing in Northumberland or Sutherlandshire.  There is a
+fascinating booklet that appeared quietly, some years ago, called AN
+AMATEUR ANGLER'S DAYS IN DOVE DALE.  It runs as easily and merrily
+and kindly as a little river, full of peace and pure enjoyment.
+Other books of the same quality have since been written by the same
+pen,--DAYS IN CLOVER, FRESH WOODS, BY MEADOW AND STREAM.  It is no
+secret, I believe, that the author is Mr. Edward Marston, the senior
+member of a London publishing-house.  But he still clings to his
+retiring pen-name of "The Amateur Angler," and represents himself,
+by a graceful fiction, as all unskilled in the art.  An instance of
+similar modesty is found in Mr. Andrew Lang, who entitles the first
+chapter of his delightful ANGLING SKETCHES (without which no
+fisherman's library is complete), "Confessions of a Duffer."  This
+an engaging liberty which no one else would dare to take.
+
+The best English fish-story pure and simple, that I know, is
+"Crocker's Hole," by H. D. Black-more, the creator of LORNA DOONE.
+
+Let us turn now to American books about angling.  Of these the
+merciful dispensations of Providence have brought forth no small
+store since Mr. William Andrew Chatto made the ill-natured remark
+which is pilloried at the head of this chapter.  By the way, it
+seems that Mr. Chatto had never heard of "The Schuylkill Fishing
+Company," which was founded on that romantic stream near
+Philadelphia in 1732, nor seen the AUTHENTIC HISTORICAL MEMOIR of
+that celebrated and amusing society.
+
+I am sorry for the man who cannot find pleasure in reading the
+appendix of THE AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK, by Thaddeus Norris; or the
+discursive pages of Frank Forester's FISH AND FISHING; or the
+introduction and notes of that unexcelled edition of Walton which
+was made by the Reverend Doctor George W. Bethune; or SUPERIOR
+FISHING and GAME FISH OF THE NORTH, by Mr. Robert B. Roosevelt; or
+Henshall's BOOK OF THE BLACK BASS; or the admirable disgressions of
+Mr. Henry P. Wells, in his FLY-RODS AND FLY-TACKLE, and THE AMERICAN
+SALMON ANGLER.  Dr. William C. Prime has never put his profound
+knowledge of the art of angling into a manual of technical
+instruction; but he has written of the delights of the sport in OWL
+CREEK LETTERS, and in I GO A-FISHING, and in some of the chapters of
+ALONG NEW ENGLAND ROADS and AMONG NEW ENGLAND HILLS, with a
+persuasive skill that has created many new anglers, and made many
+old ones grateful.  It is a fitting coincidence of heredity that his
+niece, Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson, is the author of the most tender
+and pathetic of all angling stories, FISHIN' JIMMY.
+
+
+But it is not only in books written altogether from his peculiar
+point of view and to humour his harmless insanity, that the angler
+may find pleasant reading about his favourite pastime.  There are
+excellent bits of fishing scattered all through the field of good
+literature.  It seems as if almost all the men who could write well
+had a friendly feeling for the contemplative sport.
+
+Plutarch, in THE LIVES OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS AND ROMANS, tells a
+capital fish-story of the manner in which the Egyptian Cleopatra
+fooled that far-famed Roman wight, Marc Antony, when they were
+angling together on the Nile.  As I recall it, from a perusal in
+early boyhood, Antony was having very bad luck indeed; in fact he
+had taken nothing, and was sadly put out about it.  Cleopatra,
+thinking to get a rise out of him, secretly told one of her
+attendants to dive over the opposite side of the barge and fasten a
+salt fish to the Roman general's hook.  The attendant was much
+pleased with this commission, and, having executed it, proceeded to
+add a fine stroke of his own; for when he had made the fish fast on
+the hook, he gave a great pull to the line and held on tightly.
+Antony was much excited and began to haul violently at his tackle.
+
+"By Jupiter!" he exclaimed, "it was long in coming, but I have a
+colossal bite now."
+
+"Have a care," said Cleopatra, laughing behind her sunshade, "or he
+will drag you into the water.  You must give him line when he pulls
+hard."
+
+"Not a denarius will I give!" rudely responded Antony.  "I mean to
+have this halibut or Hades!"
+
+At this moment the man under the boat, being out of breath, let the
+line go, and Antony, falling backward, drew up the salted herring.
+
+"Take that fish off the hook, Palinurus," he proudly said.  "It is
+not as large as I thought, but it looks like the oldest one that has
+been caught to-day."
+
+Such, in effect, is the tale narrated by the veracious Plutarch.
+And if any careful critic wishes to verify my quotation from memory,
+he may compare it with the proper page of Langhorne's translation; I
+think it is in the second volume, near the end.
+
+Sir Walter Scott, who once described himself as
+
+
+     "No fisher,
+      But a well-wisher
+      To the game,"
+
+
+has an amusing passage of angling in the third chapter of
+REDGAUNTLET.  Darsie Latimer is relating his adventures in
+Dumfriesshire.  "By the way," says he, "old Cotton's instructions,
+by which I hoped to qualify myself for the gentle society of
+anglers, are not worth a farthing for this meridian.  I learned this
+by mere accident, after I had waited four mortal hours.  I shall
+never forget an impudent urchin, a cowherd, about twelve years old,
+without either brogue or bonnet, barelegged, with a very indifferent
+pair of breeches,--how the villain grinned in scorn at my landing-
+net, my plummet, and the gorgeous jury of flies which I had
+assembled to destroy all the fish in the river.  I was induced at
+last to lend the rod to the sneering scoundrel, to see what he would
+make of it; and he not only half-filled my basket in an hour, but
+literally taught me to kill two trouts with my own hand."
+
+Thus ancient and well-authenticated is the superstition of the
+angling powers of the barefooted country-boy,--in fiction.
+
+Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, in that valuable but over-capitalized
+book, MY NOVEL, makes use of Fishing for Allegorical Purposes.  The
+episode of John Burley and the One-eyed Perch not only points a
+Moral but adorns the Tale.
+
+In the works of R. D. Blackmore, angling plays a less instructive
+but a pleasanter part.  It is closely interwoven with love.  There
+is a magical description of trout-fishing on a meadow-brook in ALICE
+LORRAINE.  And who that has read LORNA DOONE, (pity for the man or
+woman that knows not the delight of that book!) can ever forget how
+young John Ridd dared his way up the gliddery water-slide, after
+loaches, and found Lorna in a fair green meadow adorned with
+flowers, at the top of the brook?
+
+I made a little journey into the Doone Country once, just to see
+that brook and to fish in it.  The stream looked smaller, and the
+water-slide less terrible, than they seemed in the book.  But it was
+a mighty pretty place after all; and I suppose that even John Ridd,
+when he came back to it in after years, found it shrunken a little.
+
+All the streams were larger in our boyhood than they are now,
+except, perhaps, that which flows from the sweetest spring of all,
+the fountain of love, which John Ridd discovered beside the
+Bagworthy River,--and I, on the willow-shaded banks of the Patapsco,
+where the Baltimore girls fish for gudgeons,--and you?  Come, gentle
+reader, is there no stream whose name is musical to you, because of
+a hidden spring of love that you once found on its shore?  The
+waters of that fountain never fail, and in them alone we taste the
+undiminished fulness of immortal youth.
+
+The stories of William Black are enlivened with fish, and he knew,
+better than most men, how they should be taken.  Whenever he wanted
+to get two young people engaged to each other, all other devices
+failing, he sent them out to angle together.  If it had not been for
+fishing, everything in A PRINCESS OF THULE and WHITE HEATHER would
+have gone wrong.
+
+But even men who have been disappointed in love may angle for solace
+or diversion.  I have known some old bachelors who fished
+excellently well; and others I have known who could find, and give,
+much pleasure in a day on the stream, though they had no skill in
+the sport.  Of this class was Washington Irving, with an extract
+from whose SKETCH BOOK I will bring this rambling dissertation to an
+end.
+
+"Our first essay," says he, "was along a mountain brook among the
+highlands of the Hudson; a most unfortunate place for the execution
+of those piscatory tactics which had been invented along the velvet
+margins of quiet English rivulets.  It was one of those wild streams
+that lavish, among our romantic solitudes, unheeded beauties enough
+to fill the sketch-book of a hunter of the picturesque.  Sometimes
+it would leap down rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which
+the trees threw their broad balancing sprays, and long nameless
+weeds hung in fringes from the impending banks, dripping with
+diamond drops.  Sometimes it would brawl and fret along a ravine in
+the matted shade of a forest, filling it with murmurs; and, after
+this termagant career, would steal forth into open day, with the
+most placid, demure face imaginable; as I have seen some pestilent
+shrew of a housewife, after filling her home with uproar and ill-
+humour, come dimpling out of doors, swimming and courtesying, and
+smiling upon all the world.
+
+"How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide, at such times, through
+some bosom of green meadow-land among the mountains, where the quiet
+was only interrupted by the occasional tinkling of a bell from the
+lazy cattle among the clover, or the sound of a woodcutter's axe
+from the neighbouring forest!
+
+"For my part, I was always a bungler at all kinds of sport that
+required either patience or adroitness, and had not angled above
+half an hour before I had completely 'satisfied the sentiment,' and
+convinced myself of the truth of Izaak Walton's opinion, that
+angling is something like poetry,--a man must be born to it.  I
+hooked myself instead of the fish; tangled my line in every tree;
+lost my bait; broke my rod; until I gave up the attempt in despair,
+and passed the day under the trees, reading old Izaak, satisfied
+that it was his fascinating vein of honest simplicity and rural
+feeling that had bewitched me, and not the passion for angling."
+
+
+
+A NORWEGIAN HONEYMOON
+
+
+"The best rose-bush, after all, is not that which has the fewest
+thorns, but that which bears the finest roses."--SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ:
+The Life of Adam.
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was not all unadulterated sweetness, of course.  There were
+enough difficulties in the way to make it seem desirable; and a few
+stings of annoyance, now and then, lent piquancy to the adventure.
+But a good memory, in dealing with the past, has the art of
+straining out all the beeswax of discomfort, and storing up little
+jars of pure hydromel.  As we look back at our six weeks in Norway,
+we agree that no period of our partnership in experimental
+honeymooning has yielded more honey to the same amount of comb.
+
+Several considerations led us to the resolve of taking our honeymoon
+experimentally rather than chronologically.  We started from the
+self-evident proposition that it ought to be the happiest time in
+married life.
+
+"It is perfectly ridiculous," said my lady Graygown, "to suppose
+that a thing like that can be fixed by the calendar.  It may
+possibly fall in the first month after the wedding, but it is not
+likely.  Just think how slightly two people know each other when
+they get married.  They are in love, of course, but that is not at
+all the same as being well acquainted.  Sometimes the more love, the
+less acquaintance!  And sometimes the more acquaintance, the less
+love!  Besides, at first there are always the notes of thanks for
+the wedding-presents to be written, and the letters of
+congratulation to be answered, and it is awfully hard to make each
+one sound a little different from the others and perfectly natural.
+Then, you know, everybody seems to suspect you of the folly of being
+newly married.  You run across your friends everywhere, and they
+grin when they see you.  You can't help feeling as if a lot of
+people were watching you through opera-glasses, or taking snap-shots
+at you with a kodak.  It is absurd to imagine that the first month
+must be the real honeymoon.  And just suppose it were,--what bad
+luck that would be!  What would there be to look forward to?"
+
+Every word that fell from her lips seemed to me like the wisdom of
+Diotima.
+
+"You are right," I cried; "Portia could not hold a candle to you for
+clear argument.  Besides, suppose two people are imprudent enough to
+get married in the first week of December, as we did!--what becomes
+of the chronological honeymoon then?  There is no fishing in
+December, and all the rivers of Paradise, at least in our latitude,
+are frozen up.  No, my lady, we will discover our month of honey by
+the empirical method.  Each year we will set out together to seek it
+in a solitude for two; and we will compare notes on moons, and
+strike the final balance when we are sure that our happiest
+experiment has been completed."
+
+We are not sure of that, even yet.  We are still engaged, as a
+committee of two, in our philosophical investigation, and we decline
+to make anything but a report of progress.  We know more now than we
+did when we first went honeymooning in the city of Washington.  For
+one thing, we are certain that not even the far-famed rosemary-
+fields of Narbonne, or the fragrant hillsides of the Corbieres,
+yield a sweeter harvest to the busy-ness of the bees than the
+Norwegian meadows and mountain-slopes yielded to our idleness in the
+summer of 1888.
+
+
+II
+
+
+The rural landscape of Norway, on the long easterly slope that leads
+up to the watershed among the mountains of the western coast, is not
+unlike that of Vermont or New Hampshire.  The railway from
+Christiania to the Randsfjord carried us through a hilly country of
+scattered farms and villages.  Wood played a prominent part in the
+scenery.  There were dark stretches of forest on the hilltops and in
+the valleys; rivers filled with floating logs; sawmills beside the
+waterfalls; wooden farmhouses painted white; and rail-fences around
+the fields.  The people seemed sturdy, prosperous, independent.
+They had the familiar habit of coming down to the station to see the
+train arrive and depart.  We might have fancied ourselves on a
+journey through the Connecticut valley, if it had not been for the
+soft sing-song of the Norwegian speech and the uniform politeness of
+the railway officials.
+
+What a room that was in the inn at Randsfjord where we spent our
+first night out!  Vast, bare, primitive, with eight windows to admit
+the persistent nocturnal twilight; a sea-like floor of blue-painted
+boards, unbroken by a single island of carpet; and a castellated
+stove in one corner: an apartment for giants, with two little beds
+for dwarfs on opposite shores of the ocean.  There was no telephone;
+so we arranged a system of communication with a fishing-line, to
+make sure that the sleepy partner should be awake in time for the
+early boat in the morning.
+
+The journey up the lake took seven hours, and reminded us of a
+voyage on Lake George; placid, picturesque, and pervaded by summer
+boarders.  Somewhere on the way we had lunch, and were well
+fortified to take the road when the steamboat landed us at Odnaes,
+at the head of the lake, about two o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+There are several methods in which you may drive through Norway.
+The government maintains posting-stations at the farms along the
+main travelled highways, where you can hire horses and carriages of
+various kinds.  There are also English tourist agencies which make a
+business of providing travellers with complete transportation.  You
+may try either of these methods alone, or you may make a judicious
+mixture.
+
+Thus, by an application of the theory of permutations and
+combinations, you have your choice among four ways of accomplishing
+a driving-tour.  First, you may engage a carriage and pair, with a
+driver, from one of the tourist agencies, and roll through your
+journey in sedentary case, provided your horses do not go lame or
+give out.  Second, you may rely altogether upon the posting-stations
+to send you on your journey; and this is a very pleasant, lively
+way, provided there is not a crowd of travellers on the road before
+you, who take up all the comfortable conveyances and leave you
+nothing but a jolting cart or a ramshackle KARIOL of the time of St.
+Olaf.  Third, you may rent an easy-riding vehicle (by choice a well-
+hung gig) for the entire trip, and change ponies at the stations as
+you drive along; this is the safest way.  The fourth method is to
+hire your horseflesh at the beginning for the whole journey, and
+pick up your vehicles from place to place.  This method is
+theoretically possible, but I do not know any one who has tried it.
+
+Our gig was waiting for us at Odnaes.  There was a brisk little
+mouse-coloured pony in the shafts; and it took but a moment to strap
+our leather portmanteau on the board at the back, perch the postboy
+on top of it, and set out for our first experience of a Norwegian
+driving-tour.
+
+The road at first was level and easy; and we bowled along smoothly
+through the valley of the Etnaelv, among drooping birch-trees and
+green fields where the larks were singing.  At Tomlevolden, ten
+miles farther on, we reached the first station, a comfortable old
+farmhouse, with a great array of wooden outbuildings.  Here we had a
+chance to try our luck with the Norwegian language in demanding "en
+hest, saa straxt som muligt."  This was what the guide-book told us
+to say when we wanted a horse.
+
+There is great fun in making a random cast on the surface of a
+strange language.  You cannot tell what will come up.  It is like an
+experiment in witchcraft.  We should not have been at all surprised,
+I must confess, if our preliminary incantation had brought forth a
+cow or a basket of eggs.
+
+But the good people seemed to divine our intentions; and while we
+were waiting for one of the stable-boys to catch and harness the new
+horse, a yellow-haired maiden inquired, in very fair English, if we
+would not be pleased to have a cup of tea and some butter-bread;
+which we did with great comfort.
+
+The SKYDSGUT, or so-called postboy, for the next stage of the
+journey, was a full-grown man of considerable weight.  As he climbed
+to his perch on our portmanteau, my lady Graygown congratulated me
+on the prudence which had provided that one side of that receptacle
+should be of an inflexible stiffness, quite incapable of being
+crushed; otherwise, asked she, what would have become of her Sunday
+frock under the pressure of this stern necessity of a postboy?
+
+But I think we should not have cared very much if all our luggage
+had been smashed on this journey, for the road now began to ascend,
+and the views over the Etnadal, with its winding river, were of a
+breadth and sweetness most consoling.  Up and up we went, curving in
+and out through the forest, crossing wild ravines and shadowy dells,
+looking back at every turn on the wide landscape bathed in golden
+light.  At the station of Sveen, where we changed horse and postboy
+again, it was already evening.  The sun was down, but the mystical
+radiance of the northern twilight illumined the sky.  The dark fir-
+woods spread around us, and their odourous breath was diffused
+through the cool, still air.  We were crossing the level summit of
+the plateau, twenty-three hundred feet above the sea.  Two tiny
+woodland lakes gleamed out among the trees.  Then the road began to
+slope gently towards the west, and emerged suddenly on the edge of
+the forest, looking out over the long, lovely vale of Valders, with
+snow-touched mountains on the horizon, and the river Baegna
+shimmering along its bed, a thousand feet below us.
+
+What a heart-enlarging outlook!  What a keen joy of motion, as the
+wheels rolled down the long incline, and the sure-footed pony swung
+between the shafts and rattled his hoofs merrily on the hard road!
+What long, deep breaths of silent pleasure in the crisp night air!
+What wondrous mingling of lights in the afterglow of sunset, and the
+primrose bloom of the first stars, and faint foregleamings of the
+rising moon creeping over the hill behind us!  What perfection of
+companionship without words, as we rode together through a strange
+land, along the edge of the dark!
+
+When we finished the thirty-fifth mile, and drew up in the courtyard
+of the station at Frydenlund, Graygown sprang out, with a little
+sigh of regret.
+
+"Is it last night," she cried, "or to-morrow morning?  I have n't
+the least idea what time it is; it seems as if we had been
+travelling in eternity."
+
+"It is just ten o'clock," I answered, "and the landlord says there
+will be a hot supper of trout ready for us in five minutes."
+
+It would be vain to attempt to give a daily record of the whole
+journey in which we made this fair beginning.  It was a most idle
+and unsystematic pilgrimage.  We wandered up and down, and turned
+aside when fancy beckoned.  Sometimes we hurried on as fast as the
+horses would carry us, driving sixty or seventy miles a day;
+sometimes we loitered and dawdled, as if we did not care whether we
+got anywhere or not.  If a place pleased us, we stayed and tried the
+fishing.  If we were tired of driving, we took to the water, and
+travelled by steamer along a fjord, or hired a rowboat to cross from
+point to point.  One day we would be in a good little hotel, with
+polyglot guests, and serving-maids in stagey Norse costumes,--like
+the famous inn at Stalheim, which commands the amazing panorama of
+the Naerodal.  Another day we would lodge in a plain farmhouse like
+the station at Nedre Vasenden, where eggs and fish were the staples
+of diet, and the farmer's daughter wore the picturesque peasants'
+dress, with its tall cap, without any dramatic airs.  Lakes and
+rivers, precipices and gorges, waterfalls and glaciers and snowy
+mountains were our daily repast.  We drove over five hundred miles
+in various kinds of open wagons, KARIOLS for one, and STOLKJAERRES
+for two, after we had left our comfortable gig behind us.  We saw
+the ancient dragon-gabled church of Burgund; and the delightful,
+showery town of Bergen; and the gloomy cliffs of the Geiranger-Fjord
+laced with filmy cataracts; and the bewitched crags of the Romsdal;
+and the wide, desolate landscape of Jerkin; and a hundred other
+unforgotten scenes.  Somehow or other we went, (around and about,
+and up and down, now on wheels, and now on foot, and now in a boat,)
+all the way from Christiania to Throndhjem.  My lady Graygown could
+give you the exact itinerary, for she has been well brought up, and
+always keeps a diary.  All I know is, that we set out from one city
+and arrived at the other, and we gathered by the way a collection of
+instantaneous photographs.  I am going to turn them over now, and
+pick out a few of the clearest pictures.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Here is the bridge over the Naeselv at Fagernaes.  Just below it is
+a good pool for trout, but the river is broad and deep and swift.
+It is difficult wading to get out within reach of the fish.  I have
+taken half a dozen small ones and come to the end of my cast.  There
+is a big one lying out in the middle of the river, I am sure.  But
+the water already rises to my hips; another step will bring it over
+the top of my waders, and send me downstream feet uppermost.
+
+"Take care!" cries Graygown from the grassy bank, where she sits
+placidly crocheting some mysterious fabric of white yarn.
+
+She does not see the large rock lying at the bottom of the river
+just beyond me.  If I can step on that, and stand there without
+being swept away, I can reach the mid-current with my flies.  It is
+a long stride and a slippery foothold, but by good luck "the last
+step which costs" is accomplished.  The tiny black and orange hackle
+goes curling out over the stream, lights softly, and swings around
+with the current, folding and expanding its feathers as if it were
+alive.  The big trout takes it promptly the instant it passes over
+him; and I play him and net him without moving from my perilous
+perch.
+
+Graygown waves her crochet-work like a flag, "Bravo!" she cries.
+"That's a beauty, nearly two pounds!  But do be careful about coming
+back; you are not good enough to take any risks yet."
+
+
+The station at Skogstad is a solitary farmhouse lying far up on the
+bare hillside, with its barns and out-buildings grouped around a
+central courtyard, like a rude fortress.  The river travels along
+the valley below, now wrestling its way through a narrow passage
+among the rocks, now spreading out at leisure in a green meadow.  As
+we cross the bridge, the crystal water is changed to opal by the
+sunset glow, and a gentle breeze ruffles the long pools, and the
+trout are rising freely.  It is the perfect hour for fishing.  Would
+Graygown dare to drive on alone to the gate of the fortress, and
+blow upon the long horn which doubtless hangs beside it, and demand
+admittance and a lodging, "in the name of the great Jehovah and the
+Continental Congress,"--while I angle down the river a mile or so?
+
+Certainly she would.  What door is there in Europe at which the
+American girl is afraid to knock?  "But wait a moment.  How do you
+ask for fried chicken and pancakes in Norwegian?  KYLLING OG
+PANDEKAGE?  How fierce it sounds!  All right now.  Run along and
+fish."
+
+The river welcomes me like an old friend.  The tune that it sings is
+the same that the flowing water repeats all around the world.  Not
+otherwise do the lively rapids carry the familiar air, and the
+larger falls drone out a burly bass, along the west branch of the
+Penobscot, or down the valley of the Bouquet.  But here there are no
+forests to conceal the course of the stream.  It lies as free to the
+view as a child's thought.  As I follow on from pool to pool,
+picking out a good trout here and there, now from a rocky corner
+edged with foam, now from a swift gravelly run, now from a snug
+hiding-place that the current has hollowed out beneath the bank, all
+the way I can see the fortress far above me on the hillside.
+
+I am as sure that it has already surrendered to Graygown as if I
+could discern her white banner of crochet-work floating from the
+battlements.
+
+Just before dark, I climb the hill with a heavy basket of fish.  The
+castle gate is open.  The scent of chicken and pancakes salutes the
+weary pilgrim.  In a cosy little parlour, adorned with fluffy mats
+and pictures framed in pine-cones, lit by a hanging lamp with glass
+pendants, sits the mistress of the occasion, calmly triumphant and
+plying her crochet-needle.
+
+There is something mysterious about a woman's fancy-work.  It seems
+to have all the soothing charm of the tobacco-plant, without its
+inconveniences.  Just to see her tranquillity, while she relaxes her
+mind and busies her fingers with a bit of tatting or embroidery or
+crochet, gives me a sense of being domesticated, a "homey" feeling,
+anywhere in the wide world.
+
+
+If you ever go to Norway, you must be sure to see the Loenvand.  You
+can set out from the comfortable hotel at Faleide, go up the Indvik
+Fjord in a rowboat, cross over a two-mile hill on foot or by
+carriage, spend a happy day on the lake, and return to your inn in
+time for a late supper.  The lake is perhaps the most beautiful in
+Norway.  Long and narrow, it lies like a priceless emerald of palest
+green, hidden and guarded by jealous mountains.  It is fed by huge
+glaciers, which hang over the shoulders of the hills like ragged
+cloaks of ice.
+
+As we row along the shore, trolling in vain for the trout that live
+in the ice-cold water, fragments of the tattered cloth-of-silver far
+above us, on the opposite side, are loosened by the touch of the
+summer sun, and fall from the precipice.  They drift downward, at
+first, as noiselessly as thistledowns; then they strike the rocks
+and come crashing towards the lake with the hollow roar of an
+avalanche.
+
+At the head of the lake we find ourselves in an enormous
+amphitheatre of mountains.  Glaciers are peering down upon us.
+Snow-fields glare at us with glistening eyes.  Black crags seem to
+bend above us with an eternal frown.  Streamers of foam float from
+the forehead of the hills and the lips of the dark ravines.  But
+there is a little river of cold, pure water flowing from one of the
+rivers of ice, and a pleasant shelter of young trees and bushes
+growing among the debris of shattered rocks; and there we build our
+camp-fire and eat our lunch.
+
+Hunger is a most impudent appetite.  It makes a man forget all the
+proprieties.  What place is there so lofty, so awful, that he will
+not dare to sit down in it and partake of food?  Even on the side of
+Mount Sinai, the elders of Israel spread their out-of-door table,
+"and did eat and drink."
+
+
+I see the Tarn of the Elk at this moment, just as it looked in the
+clear sunlight of that August afternoon, ten years ago.  Far down in
+a hollow of the desolate hills it nestles, four thousand feet above
+the sea.  The moorland trail hangs high above it, and, though it is
+a mile away, every curve of the treeless shore, every shoal and reef
+in the light green water is clearly visible.  With a powerful field-
+glass one can almost see the large trout for which the pond is
+famous.
+
+The shelter-hut on the bank is built of rough gray stones, and the
+roof is leaky to the light as well as to the weather.  But there are
+two beds in it, one for my guide and one for me; and a practicable
+fireplace, which is soon filled with a blaze of comfort.  There is
+also a random library of novels, which former fishermen have
+thoughtfully left behind them.  I like strong reading in the
+wilderness.  Give me a story with plenty of danger and wholesome
+fighting in it,--"The Three Musketeers," or "Treasure Island," or
+"The Afghan's Knife."  Intricate studies of social dilemmas and
+tales of mild philandering seem bloodless and insipid.
+
+The trout in the Tarn of the Elk are large, undoubtedly, but they
+are also few in number and shy in disposition.  Either some of the
+peasants have been fishing over them with the deadly "otter," or
+else they belong to that variety of the trout family known as TRUTTA
+DAMNOSA,--the species which you can see but cannot take.  We watched
+these aggravating fish playing on the surface at sunset; we saw them
+dart beneath our boat in the early morning; but not until a driving
+snowstorm set in, about noon of the second day, did we succeed in
+persuading any of them to take the fly.  Then they rose, for a
+couple of hours, with amiable perversity.  I caught five, weighing
+between two and four pounds each, and stopped because my hands were
+so numb that I could cast no longer.
+
+Now for a long tramp over the hills and home.  Yes, home; for yonder
+in the white house at Drivstuen, with fuchsias and geraniums
+blooming in the windows, and a pretty, friendly Norse girl to keep
+her company, my lady is waiting for me.  See, she comes running out
+to the door, in the gathering dusk, with a red flower in her hair,
+and hails me with the fisherman's greeting.  WHAT LUCK?
+
+Well, THIS luck, at all events!  I can show you a few good fish, and
+sit down with you to a supper of reindeer-venison and a quiet
+evening of music and talk.
+
+
+Shall I forget thee, hospitable Stuefloten, dearest to our memory of
+all the rustic stations in Norway?  There are no stars beside thy
+name in the pages of Baedeker.  But in the book of our hearts a
+whole constellation is thine.
+
+The long, low, white farmhouse stands on a green hill at the head of
+the Romsdal.  A flourishing crop of grass and flowers grows on the
+stable-roof, and there is a little belfry with a big bell to call
+the labourers home from the fields.  In the corner of the living-
+room of the old house there is a broad fireplace built across the
+angle.  Curious cupboards are tucked away everywhere.  The long
+table in the dining-room groans thrice a day with generous fare.
+There are as many kinds of hot bread as in a Virginia country-house;
+the cream is thick enough to make a spoon stand up in amazement;
+once, at dinner, we sat embarrassed before six different varieties
+of pudding.
+
+In the evening, when the saffron light is beginning to fade, we go
+out and walk in the road before the house, looking down the long
+mystical vale of the Rauma, or up to the purple western hills from
+which the clear streams of the Ulvaa flow to meet us.
+
+Above Stuefloten the Rauma lingers and meanders through a smoother
+and more open valley, with broad beds of gravel and flowery meadows.
+Here the trout and grayling grow fat and lusty, and here we angle
+for them, day after day, in water so crystalline that when one steps
+into the stream one hardly knows whether to expect a depth of six
+inches or six feet.
+
+Tiny English flies and leaders of gossamer are the tackle for such
+water in midsummer.  With this delicate outfit, and with a light
+hand and a long line, one may easily outfish the native angler, and
+fill a twelve-pound basket every fair day.  I remember an old
+Norwegian, an inveterate fisherman, whose footmarks we saw ahead of
+us on the stream all through an afternoon.  Footmarks I call them;
+and so they were, literally, for there were only the prints of a
+single foot to be seen on the banks of sand, and between them, a
+series of small, round, deep holes.
+
+"What kind of a bird made those marks, Frederik?" I asked my
+faithful guide.
+
+"That is old Pedersen," he said, "with his wooden leg.  He makes a
+dot after every step.  We shall catch him in a little while."
+
+Sure enough, about six o'clock we saw him standing on a grassy
+point, hurling his line, with a fat worm on the end of it, far
+across the stream, and letting it drift down with the current.  But
+the water was too fine for that style of fishing, and the poor old
+fellow had but a half dozen little fish.  My creel was already
+overflowing, so I emptied out all of the grayling into his bag, and
+went on up the river to complete my tale of trout before dark.
+
+And when the fishing is over, there is Graygown with the wagon,
+waiting at the appointed place under the trees, beside the road.
+The sturdy white pony trots gayly homeward.  The pale yellow stars
+blossom out above the hills again, as they did on that first night
+when we were driving down into the Valders.  Frederik leans over the
+back of the seat, telling us marvellous tales, in his broken
+English, of the fishing in a certain lake among the mountains, and
+of the reindeer-shooting on the fjeld beyond it.
+
+"It is sad that you go to-morrow," says he "but you come back
+another year, I think, to fish in that lake, and to shoot those
+reindeer."
+
+Yes, Frederik, we are coming back to Norway some day, perhaps,--who
+can tell?  It is one of the hundred places that we are vaguely
+planning to revisit.  For, though we did not see the midnight sun
+there, we saw the honeymoon most distinctly.  And it was bright
+enough to take pictures by its light.
+
+
+
+WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS?
+
+
+"My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that ultimately
+the sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall
+become, as it were, interwoven into man's existence.  He shall take
+from all their beauty and enjoy their glory."--RICHARD JEFFERIES:
+The Life of the Fields.
+
+
+It was the little lad that asked the question; and the answer also,
+as you will see, was mainly his.
+
+We had been keeping Sunday afternoon together in our favourite
+fashion, following out that pleasant text which tells us to "behold
+the fowls of the air."  There is no injunction of Holy Writ less
+burdensome in acceptance, or more profitable in obedience, than this
+easy out-of-doors commandment.  For several hours we walked in the
+way of this precept, through the untangled woods that lie behind the
+Forest Hills Lodge, where a pair of pigeon-hawks had their nest; and
+around the brambly shores of the small pond, where Maryland yellow-
+throats and song-sparrows were settled; and under the lofty hemlocks
+of the fragment of forest across the road, where rare warblers
+flitted silently among the tree-tops.  The light beneath the
+evergreens was growing dim as we came out from their shadow into the
+widespread glow of the sunset, on the edge of a grassy hill,
+overlooking the long valley of the Gale River, and uplooking to the
+Franconia Mountains.
+
+It was the benediction hour.  The placid air of the day shed a new
+tranquillity over the consoling landscape.  The heart of the earth
+seemed to taste a repose more perfect than that of common days.  A
+hermit-thrush, far up the vale, sang his vesper hymn; while the
+swallows, seeking their evening meal, circled above the river-fields
+without an effort, twittering softly, now and then, as if they must
+give thanks.  Slight and indefinable touches in the scene, perhaps
+the mere absence of the tiny human figures passing along the road or
+labouring in the distant meadows, perhaps the blue curls of smoke
+rising lazily from the farmhouse chimneys, or the family groups
+sitting under the maple-trees before the door, diffused a sabbath
+atmosphere over the world.
+
+Then said the lad, lying on the grass beside me, "Father, who owns
+the mountains?"
+
+I happened to have heard, the day before, of two or three lumber
+companies that had bought some of the woodland slopes; so I told
+him their names, adding that there were probably a good many
+different owners, whose claims taken all together would cover
+the whole Franconia range of hills.
+
+"Well," answered the lad, after a moment of silence, "I don't see
+what difference that makes.  Everybody can look at them."
+
+They lay stretched out before us in the level sunlight, the sharp
+peaks outlined against the sky, the vast ridges of forest sinking
+smoothly towards the valleys, the deep hollows gathering purple
+shadows in their bosoms, and the little foothills standing out in
+rounded promontories of brighter green from the darker mass behind
+them.
+
+Far to the east, the long comb of Twin Mountain extended itself back
+into the untrodden wilderness.  Mount Garfield lifted a clear-cut
+pyramid through the translucent air.  The huge bulk of Lafayette
+ascended majestically in front of us, crowned with a rosy diadem of
+rocks.  Eagle Cliff and Bald Mountain stretched their line of
+scalloped peaks across the entrance to the Notch.  Beyond that
+shadowy vale, the swelling summits of Cannon Mountain rolled away to
+meet the tumbling waves of Kinsman, dominated by one loftier crested
+billow that seemed almost ready to curl and break out of green
+silence into snowy foam.  Far down the sleeping Landaff valley the
+undulating dome of Moosilauke trembled in the distant blue.
+
+They were all ours, from crested cliff to wooded base.  The solemn
+groves of firs and spruces, the plumed sierras of lofty pines, the
+stately pillared forests of birch and beech, the wild ravines, the
+tremulous thickets of silvery poplar, the bare peaks with their wide
+outlooks, and the cool vales resounding with the ceaseless song of
+little rivers,--we knew and loved them all; they ministered peace
+and joy to us; they were all ours, though we held no title deeds and
+our ownership had never been recorded.
+
+What is property, after all?  The law says there are two kinds, real
+and personal.  But it seems to me that the only real property is
+that which is truly personal, that which we take into our inner life
+and make our own forever, by understanding and admiration and
+sympathy and love.  This is the only kind of possession that is
+worth anything.
+
+A gallery of great paintings adorns the house of the Honourable
+Midas Bond, and every year adds a new treasure to his collection.
+He knows how much they cost him, and he keeps the run of the
+quotations at the auction sales, congratulating himself as the price
+of the works of his well-chosen artists rises in the scale, and the
+value of his art treasures is enhanced.  But why should he call them
+his?  He is only their custodian.  He keeps them well varnished, and
+framed in gilt.  But he never passes through those gilded frames
+into the world of beauty that lies behind the painted canvas.  He
+knows nothing of those lovely places from which the artist's soul
+and hand have drawn their inspiration.  They are closed and barred
+to him.  He has bought the pictures, but he cannot buy the key.  The
+poor art student who wanders through his gallery, lingering with awe
+and love before the masterpieces, owns them far more truly than
+Midas does.
+
+Pomposus Silverman purchased a rich library a few years ago.  The
+books were rare and costly.  That was the reason why Pomposus bought
+them.  He was proud to feel that he was the possessor of literary
+treasures which were not to be found in the houses of his wealthiest
+acquaintances.  But the threadbare Bucherfreund, who was engaged at
+a slender salary to catalogue the library and take care of it,
+became the real proprietor.  Pomposus paid for the books, but
+Bucherfreund enjoyed them.
+
+I do not mean to say that the possession of much money is always a
+barrier to real wealth of mind and heart.  Nor would I maintain that
+all the poor of this world are rich in faith and heirs of the
+kingdom.  But some of them are.  And if some of the rich of this
+world (through the grace of Him with whom all things are possible)
+are also modest in their tastes, and gentle in their hearts, and
+open in their minds, and ready to be pleased with unbought
+pleasures, they simply share in the best things which are provided
+for all.
+
+I speak not now of the strife that men wage over the definition and
+the laws of property.  Doubtless there is much here that needs to be
+set right.  There are men and women in the world who are shut out
+from the right to earn a living, so poor that they must perish for
+want of daily bread, so full of misery that there is no room for the
+tiniest seed of joy in their lives.  This is the lingering shame of
+civilization.  Some day, perhaps, we shall find the way to banish
+it.  Some day, every man shall have his title to a share in the
+world's great work and the world's large joy.
+
+But meantime it is certain that, where there are a hundred poor
+bodies who suffer from physical privation, there are a thousand poor
+souls who suffer from spiritual poverty.  To relive this greater
+suffering there needs no change of laws, only a change of heart.
+
+What does it profit a man to be the landed proprietor of countless
+acres unless he can reap the harvest of delight that blooms from
+every rood of God's earth for the seeing eye and the loving spirit?
+And who can reap that harvest so closely that there shall not be
+abundant gleaning left for all mankind?  The most that a wide estate
+can yield to its legal owner is a living.  But the real owner can
+gather from a field of goldenrod, shining in the August sunlight, an
+unearned increment of delight.
+
+We measure success by accumulation.  The measure is false.  The true
+measure is appreciation.  He who loves most has most.
+
+How foolishly we train ourselves for the work of life!  We give our
+most arduous and eager efforts to the cultivation of those faculties
+which will serve us in the competitions of the forum and the market-
+place.  But if we were wise, we should care infinitely more for the
+unfolding of those inward, secret, spiritual powers by which alone
+we can become the owners of anything that is worth having.  Surely
+God is the great proprietor.  Yet all His works He has given away.
+He holds no title-deeds.  The one thing that is His, is the perfect
+understanding, the perfect joy, the perfect love, of all things that
+He has made.  To a share in this high ownership He welcomes all who
+are poor in spirit.  This is the earth which the meek inherit.  This
+is the patrimony of the saints in light.
+
+"Come, laddie," I said to my comrade, "let us go home.  You and I
+are very rich.  We own the mountains.  But we can never sell them,
+and we don't want to."
+
+
+
+A LAZY, IDLE BROOK
+
+
+"Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be
+sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.  And it is not
+by any means certain that a man's business is the most important
+thing he has to do."--ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: An Apology for Idlers.
+
+
+I
+
+A CASUAL INTRODUCTION
+
+
+On the South Shore of Long Island, all things incline to a natural
+somnolence.  There are no ambitious mountains, no braggart cliffs,
+no hasty torrents, no hustling waterfalls in that land,
+
+
+   "In which it seemeth always afternoon."
+
+
+The salt meadows sleep in the summer sun; the farms and market-
+gardens yield a placid harvest to a race of singularly unhurried
+tillers of the soil; the low hills rise with gentle slopes, not
+caring to get too high in the world, only far enough to catch a
+pleasant glimpse of the sea and a breath of fresh air; the very
+trees grow leisurely, as if they felt that they had "all the time
+there is." And from this dreamy land, close as it lies to the
+unresting ocean, the tumult of the breakers and the foam of ever-
+turning tides are shut off by the languid lagoons of the Great South
+Bay and a long range of dunes, crested with wire-grass, bay-bushes,
+and wild-roses.
+
+In such a country you could not expect a little brook to be noisy,
+fussy, energetic.  If it were not lazy, it would be out of keeping.
+
+But the actual and undisguised idleness of this particular brook was
+another affair, and one in which it was distinguished among its
+fellows.  For almost all the other little rivers of the South Shore,
+lazy as they may be by nature, yet manage to do some kind of work
+before they finish the journey from their crystal-clear springs into
+the brackish waters of the bay.  They turn the wheels of sleepy
+gristmills, while the miller sits with his hands in his pockets
+underneath the willow-trees.  They fill reservoirs out of which
+great steam-engines pump the water to quench the thirst of Brooklyn.
+Even the smaller streams tarry long enough in their seaward
+sauntering to irrigate a few cranberry-bogs and so provide that
+savoury sauce which makes the Long Island turkey a fitter subject
+for Thanksgiving.
+
+But this brook of which I speak did none of these useful things.
+It was absolutely out of business.
+
+There was not a mill, nor a reservoir, nor a cranberry-bog, on all
+its course of a short mile.  The only profitable affair it ever
+undertook was to fill a small ice-pond near its entrance into the
+Great South Bay.  You could hardly call this a very energetic
+enterprise.  It amounted to little more than a good-natured consent
+to allow itself to be used by the winter for the making of ice, if
+the winter happened to be cold enough.  Even this passive industry
+came to nothing; for the water, being separated from the bay only by
+a short tideway under a wooden bridge on the south country road, was
+too brackish to freeze easily; and the ice, being pervaded with
+weeds, was not much relished by the public.  So the wooden ice-
+house, innocent of paint, and toned by the weather to a soft, sad-
+coloured gray, stood like an improvised ruin among the pine-trees
+beside the pond.
+
+It was through this unharvested ice-pond, this fallow field of
+water, that my lady Graygown and I entered on acquaintance with our
+lazy, idle brook.  We had a house, that summer, a few miles down the
+bay.  But it was a very small house, and the room that we like best
+was out of doors.  So we spent much time in a sailboat,--by name
+"The Patience,"--making voyages of exploration into watery corners
+and byways.  Sailing past the wooden bridge one day, when a strong
+east wind had made a very low tide, we observed the water flowing
+out beneath the road with an eddying current.  We were interested to
+discover where such a stream came from.  But the sailboat could not
+go under the bridge, nor even make a landing on the shore without
+risk of getting aground.  The next day we came back in a rowboat to
+follow the clue of curiosity.  The tide was high now, and we passed
+with the reversed current under the bridge, almost bumping our heads
+against the timbers.  Emerging upon the pond, we rowed across its
+shallow, weed-encumbered waters, and were introduced without
+ceremony to one of the most agreeable brooks that we had ever met.
+
+It was quite broad where it came into the pond,--a hundred feet from
+side to side,--bordered with flags and rushes and feathery meadow
+grasses.  The real channel meandered in sweeping curves from bank to
+bank, and the water, except in the swifter current, was filled with
+an amazing quantity of some aquatic moss.  The woods came straggling
+down on either shore.  There were fallen trees in the stream here
+and there.  On one of the points an old swamp-maple, with its
+decrepit branches and its leaves already touched with the hectic
+colours of decay, hung far out over the water which was undermining
+it, looking and leaning downward, like an aged man who bends, half-
+sadly and half-willingly, towards the grave.
+
+But for the most part the brook lay wide open to the sky, and the
+tide, rising and sinking somewhat irregularly in the pond below,
+made curious alternations in its depth and in the swiftness of its
+current.  For about half a mile we navigated this lazy little river,
+and then we found that rowing would carry us no farther, for we came
+to a place where the stream issued with a livelier flood from an
+archway in a thicket.
+
+This woodland portal was not more than four feet wide, and the
+branches of the small trees were closely interwoven overhead.  We
+shipped the oars and took one of them for a paddle.  Stooping down,
+we pushed the boat through the archway and found ourselves in the
+Fairy Dell.  It was a long, narrow bower, perhaps four hundred feet
+from end to end, with the brook dancing through it in a joyous,
+musical flow over a bed of clean yellow sand and white pebbles.
+There were deep places in the curves where you could hardly touch
+bottom with an oar, and shallow places in the straight runs where
+the boat would barely float.  Not a ray of unbroken sunlight leaked
+through the green roof of this winding corridor; and all along the
+sides there were delicate mosses and tall ferns and wildwood flowers
+that love the shade.
+
+At the upper end of the bower our progress in the boat was barred by
+a low bridge, on a forgotten road that wound through the pine-woods.
+Here I left my lady Graygown, seated on the shady corner of the
+bridge with a book, swinging her feet over the stream, while I set
+out to explore its further course.  Above the wood-road there were
+no more fairy dells, nor easy-going estuaries.  The water came down
+through the most complicated piece of underbrush that I have ever
+encountered.  Alders and swamp maples and pussy-willows and gray
+birches grew together in a wild confusion.  Blackberry bushes and
+fox-grapes and cat-briers trailed and twisted themselves in an
+incredible tangle.  There was only one way to advance, and that was
+to wade in the middle of the brook, stooping low, lifting up the
+pendulous alder-branches, threading a tortuous course, now under and
+now over the innumerable obstacles, as a darning-needle is pushed in
+and out through the yarn of a woollen stocking.
+
+It was dark and lonely in that difficult passage.  The brook divided
+into many channels, turning this way and that way, as if it were
+lost in the woods.  There were huge clumps of OSMUNDA REGALIS
+spreading their fronds in tropical profusion.  Mouldering logs were
+covered with moss.  The water gurgled slowly into deep corners under
+the banks.  Catbirds and blue jays fluttered screaming from the
+thickets.  Cotton-tailed rabbits darted away, showing the white flag
+of fear.  Once I thought I saw the fuscous gleam of a red fox
+stealing silently through the brush.  It would have been no surprise
+to hear the bark of a raccoon, or see the eyes of a wildcat gleaming
+through the leaves.
+
+For more than an hour I was pushing my way through this miniature
+wilderness of half a mile; and then I emerged suddenly, to find
+myself face to face with--a railroad embankment and the afternoon
+express, with its parlour-cars, thundering down to Southampton!
+
+It was a strange and startling contrast.  The explorer's joy, the
+sense of adventure, the feeling of wildness and freedom, withered
+and crumpled somewhat preposterously at the sight of the parlour-
+cars.  My scratched hands and wet boots and torn coat seemed unkempt
+and disreputable.  Perhaps some of the well-dressed people looking
+out at the windows of the train were the friends with whom we were
+to dine on Saturday.  BATECHE!  What would they say to such a
+costume as mine?  What did I care what they said!
+
+But, all the same, it was a shock, a disenchantment, to find that
+civilization, with all its absurdities and conventionalities, was so
+threateningly close to my new-found wilderness.  My first enthusiasm
+was not a little chilled as I walked back, along an open woodland
+path, to the bridge where Graygown was placidly reading.  Reading, I
+say, though her book was closed, and her brown eyes were wandering
+over the green leaves of the thicket, and the white clouds drifting,
+drifting lazily across the blue deep of the sky.
+
+
+
+II
+
+A BETTER ACQUAINTANCE
+
+
+On the voyage home, she gently talked me out of my disappointment,
+and into a wiser frame of mind.
+
+It was a surprise, of course, she admitted, to find that our
+wilderness was so little, and to discover the trail of a parlour-car
+on the edge of Paradise.  But why not turn the surprise around, and
+make it pleasant instead of disagreeable?  Why not look at the
+contrast from the side that we liked best?
+
+It was not necessary that everybody should take the same view of
+life that pleased us.  The world would not get on very well without
+people who preferred parlour-cars to canoes, and patent-leather
+shoes to India-rubber boots, and ten-course dinners to picnics in
+the woods.  These good people were unconsciously toiling at the hard
+and necessary work of life in order that we, of the chosen and
+fortunate few, should be at liberty to enjoy the best things in the
+world.
+
+Why should we neglect our opportunities, which were also our real
+duties?  The nervous disease of civilization might prevail all
+around us, but that ought not to destroy our grateful enjoyment of
+the lucid intervals that were granted to us by a merciful
+Providence.
+
+Why should we not take this little untamed brook, running its humble
+course through the borders of civilized life and midway between two
+flourishing summer resorts,--a brook without a single house or a
+cultivated field on its banks, as free and beautiful and secluded as
+if it flowed through miles of trackless forest,--why not take this
+brook as a sign that the ordering of the universe had a "good
+intention" even for inveterate idlers, and that the great Arranger
+of the world felt some kindness for such gipsy-hearts as ours?  What
+law, human or divine, was there to prevent us from making this
+stream our symbol of deliverance from the conventional and
+commonplace, our guide to liberty and a quiet mind?
+
+So reasoned Graygown with her
+
+
+          "most silver flow
+     Of subtle-paced counsel in distress."
+
+
+And, according to her word, so did we.  That lazy, idle brook became
+to us one of the best of friends; the pathfinder of happiness on
+many a bright summer day; and, through long vacations, the faithful
+encourager of indolence.
+
+Indolence in the proper sense of the word, you understand.  The
+meaning which is commonly given to it, as Archbishop Trench pointed
+out in his suggestive book about WORDS AND THEIR USES, is altogether
+false.  To speak of indolence as if it were a vice is just a great
+big verbal slander.
+
+Indolence is a virtue.  It comes from two Latin words, which mean
+freedom from anxiety or grief.  And that is a wholesome state of
+mind.  There are times and seasons when it is even a pious and
+blessed state of mind.  Not to be in a hurry; not to be ambitious or
+jealous or resentful; not to feel envious of anybody; not to fret
+about to-day nor worry about to-morrow,--that is the way we ought
+all to feel at some time in our lives; and that is the kind of
+indolence in which our brook faithfully encouraged us.
+
+'T is an age in which such encouragement is greatly needed.  We have
+fallen so much into the habit of being always busy that we know not
+how nor when to break it off with firmness.  Our business tags after
+us into the midst of our pleasures, and we are ill at ease beyond
+reach of the telegraph and the daily newspaper.  We agitate
+ourselves amazingly about a multitude of affairs,--the politics of
+Europe, the state of the weather all around the globe, the marriages
+and festivities of very rich people, and the latest novelties in
+crime, none of which are of vital interest to us.  The more earnest
+souls among us are cultivating a vicious tendency to Summer Schools,
+and Seaside Institutes of Philosophy, and Mountaintop Seminaries of
+Modern Languages.
+
+We toil assiduously to cram something more into those scrap-bags of
+knowledge which we fondly call our minds.  Seldom do we rest
+tranquil long enough to find out whether there is anything in them
+already that is of real value,--any native feeling, any original
+thought, which would like to come out and sun itself for a while in
+quiet.
+
+For my part, I am sure that I stand more in need of a deeper sense
+of contentment with life than of a knowledge of the Bulgarian
+tongue, and that all the paradoxes of Hegel would not do me so much
+good as one hour of vital sympathy with the careless play of
+children.  The Marquis du Paty de l'Huitre may espouse the daughter
+and heiress of the Honourable James Bulger with all imaginable pomp,
+if he will.  CA NE M'INTRIGUE POINT DU TOUT.  I would rather stretch
+myself out on the grass and watch yonder pair of kingbirds carrying
+luscious flies to their young ones in the nest, or chasing away the
+marauding crow with shrill cries of anger.
+
+What a pretty battle it is, and in a good cause, too!  Waste no pity
+on that big black ruffian.  He is a villain and a thief, an egg-
+stealer, an ogre, a devourer of unfledged innocents.  The kingbirds
+are not afraid of him, knowing that he is a coward at heart.  They
+fly upon him, now from below, now from above.  They buffet him from
+one side and from the other.  They circle round him like a pair of
+swift gunboats round an antiquated man-of-war.  They even perch upon
+his back and dash their beaks into his neck and pluck feathers from
+his piratical plumage.  At last his lumbering flight has carried him
+far enough away, and the brave little defenders fly back to the
+nest, poising above it on quivering wings for a moment, then dipping
+down swiftly in pursuit of some passing insect.  The war is over.
+Courage has had its turn.  Now tenderness comes into play.  The
+young birds, all ignorant of the passing danger, but always
+conscious of an insatiable hunger, are uttering loud remonstrances
+and plaintive demands for food.  Domestic life begins again, and
+they that sow not, neither gather into barns, are fed.
+
+
+Do you suppose that this wondrous stage of earth was set, and all
+the myriad actors on it
+taught to play their parts, without a spectator in view?  Do you
+think that there is anything better for you and me to do, now and
+then, than to sit down quietly in a humble seat, and watch a few
+scenes in the drama?  Has it not something to say to us, and do we
+not understand it best when we have a peaceful heart and free from
+dolor?  That is what IN-DOLENCE means, and there are no better
+teachers of it then the light-hearted birds and untoiling flowers,
+commended by the wisest of all masters to our consideration; nor can
+we find a more pleasant pedagogue to lead us to their school than a
+small, merry brook.
+
+And this was what our chosen stream did for us.  It was always
+luring us away from an artificial life into restful companionship
+with nature.
+
+Suppose, for example, we found ourselves growing a bit dissatisfied
+with the domestic arrangements of our little cottage, and coveting
+the splendours of a grander establishment.  An afternoon on the
+brook was a good cure for that folly.  Or suppose a day came when
+there was an imminent prospect of many formal calls.  We had an
+important engagement up the brook; and while we kept it we could
+think with satisfaction of the joy of our callers when they
+discovered that they could discharge their whole duty with a piece
+of pasteboard.  This was an altruistic pleasure.  Or suppose that a
+few friends were coming to supper, and there were no flowers for the
+supper-table.  We could easily have bought them in the village.  But
+it was far more to our liking to take the children up the brook, and
+come back with great bunches of wild white honeysuckle and blue
+flag, or posies of arrowheads and cardinal-flowers.  Or suppose that
+I was very unwisely and reluctantly labouring at some serious piece
+of literary work, promised for the next number of THE SCRIBBLER'S
+REVIEW; and suppose that in the midst of this labour the sad news
+came to me that the fisherman had forgotten to leave any fish at our
+cottage that morning.  Should my innocent babes and my devoted wife
+be left to perish of starvation while I continued my poetical
+comparison of the two Williams, Shakspeare and Watson?  Inhuman
+selfishness!  Of course it was my plain duty to sacrifice my
+inclinations, and get my fly-rod, and row away across the bay, with
+a deceptive appearance of cheerfulness, to catch a basket of trout
+in--
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE SECRETS OF INTIMACY
+
+
+THERE!  I came within eight letters of telling the name of the
+brook, a thing that I am firmly resolved not to do.  If it were an
+ordinary fishless little river, or even a stream with nothing better
+than grass-pike and sunfish in it, you should have the name and
+welcome.  But when a brook contains speckled trout, and when their
+presence is known to a very few persons who guard the secret as the
+dragon guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides, and when the
+size of the trout is large beyond the dreams of hope,--well, when
+did you know a true angler who would willingly give away the name of
+such a brook as that?  You may find an encourager of indolence in
+almost any stream of the South Side, and I wish you joy of your
+brook.  But if you want to catch trout in mine you must discover it
+for yourself, or perhaps go with me some day, and solemnly swear
+secrecy.
+
+That was the way in which the freedom of the stream was conferred
+upon me.  There was a small boy in the village, the son of rich but
+respectable parents, and an inveterate all-round sportsman, aged
+fourteen years, with whom I had formed a close intimacy.  I was
+telling him about the pleasure of exploring the idle brook, and
+expressing the opinion that in bygone days, (in that mythical "forty
+years ago" when all fishing was good), there must have been trout in
+it.  A certain look came over the boy's face.  He gazed at me
+solemnly, as if he were searching the inmost depths of my character
+before he spoke.
+
+"Say, do you want to know something?"
+
+I assured him that an increase of knowledge was the chief aim of my
+life.
+
+"Do you promise you won't tell?"
+
+I expressed my readiness to be bound to silence by the most awful
+pledge that the law would sanction.
+
+"Wish you may die?"
+
+I not only wished that I might die, but was perfectly certain that I
+would die.
+
+"Well, what's the matter with catching trout in that brook now?  Do
+you want to go with me next Saturday?  I saw four or five bully ones
+last week, and got three."
+
+On the appointed day we made the voyage, landed at the upper bridge,
+walked around by the woodpath to the railroad embankment, and began
+to worm our way down through the tangled wilderness.  Fly-fishing,
+of course, was out of the question.  The only possible method of
+angling was to let the line, baited with a juicy "garden hackle,"
+drift down the current as far as possible before you, under the
+alder-branches and the cat-briers, into the holes and corners of the
+stream.  Then, if there came a gentle tug on the rod, you must
+strike, to one side or the other, as the branches might allow, and
+trust wholly to luck for a chance to play the fish.  Many a trout we
+lost that day,--the largest ones, of course,--and many a hook was
+embedded in a sunken log, or hopelessly entwined among the boughs
+overhead.  But when we came out at the bridge, very wet and
+disheveled, we had seven pretty fish, the heaviest about half a
+pound.  The Fairy Dell yielded a brace of smaller ones, and
+altogether we were reasonably happy as we took up the oars and
+pushed out upon the open stream.
+
+But if there were fish above, why should there not be fish below?
+It was about sunset, the angler's golden hour.  We were already
+committed to the crime of being late for supper.  It would add
+little to our guilt and much to our pleasure to drift slowly down
+the middle of the brook and cast the artful fly in the deeper
+corners on either shore.  So I took off the vulgar bait-hook and put
+on a delicate leader with a Queen of the Water for a tail-fly and a
+Yellow Sally for a dropper,--innocent little confections of feathers
+and tinsel, dressed on the tiniest hooks, and calculated to tempt
+the appetite or the curiosity of the most capricious trout.
+
+For a long time the whipping of the water produced no result, and it
+seemed as if the dainty style of angling were destined to prove less
+profitable than plain fishing with a worm.  But presently we came to
+an elbow of the brook, just above the estuary, where there was quite
+a stretch of clear water along the lower side, with two half-sunken
+logs sticking out from the bank, against which the current had
+drifted a broad raft of weeds.  I made a long cast, and sent the
+tail-fly close to the edge of the weeds.  There was a swelling
+ripple on the surface of the water, and a noble fish darted from
+under the logs, dashed at the fly, missed it, and whirled back to
+his shelter.
+
+"Gee!" said the boy, "that was a whacker!  He made a wake like a
+steamboat."
+
+It was a moment for serious thought.  What was best to be done with
+that fish?  Leave him to settle down for the night and come back
+after him another day?  Or try another cast for him at once?  A fish
+on Saturday evening is worth two on Monday morning.  I changed the
+Queen of the Water for a Royal Coachman tied on a number fourteen
+hook,--white wings, peacock body with a belt of crimson silk,--and
+sent it out again, a foot farther up the stream and a shade closer
+to the weeds.  As it settled on the water, there was a flash of gold
+from the shadow beneath the logs, and a quick turn of the wrist made
+the tiny hook fast in the fish.  He fought wildly to get back to the
+shelter of his logs, but the four ounce rod had spring enough in it
+to hold him firmly away from that dangerous retreat.  Then he
+splurged up and down the open water, and made fierce dashes among
+the grassy shallows, and seemed about to escape a dozen times.  But
+at last his force was played out; he came slowly towards the boat,
+turning on his side, and I netted him in my hat.
+
+"Bully for us;" said the boy, "we got him!  What a dandy!"
+
+It was indeed one of the handsomest fish that I have ever taken on
+the South Side,--just short of two pounds and a quarter,--small
+head, broad tail, and well-rounded sides coloured with orange and
+blue and gold and red.  A pair of the same kind, one weighing two
+pounds and the other a pound and three quarters, were taken by
+careful fishing down the lower end of the pool, and then we rowed
+home through the dusk, pleasantly convinced that there is no virtue
+more certainly rewarded than the patience of anglers, and entirely
+willing to put up with a cold supper and a mild reproof for the sake
+of sport.
+
+Of course we could not resist the temptation to show those fish to
+the neighbours.  But, equally of course, we evaded the request to
+give precise information as to the precise place where they were
+caught.  Indeed, I fear that there must have been something confused
+in our description of where we had been on that afternoon.  Our
+carefully selected language may have been open to misunderstanding.
+At all events, the next day, which was the Sabbath, there was a row
+of eager but unprincipled anglers sitting on a bridge OVER ANOTHER
+STREAM, and fishing for trout with worms and large expectations, but
+without visible results.
+
+The boy and I agreed that if this did not teach a good moral lesson
+it was not our fault.
+
+I obtained the boy's consent to admit the partner of my life's joys
+and two of our children to the secret of the brook, and thereafter,
+when we visited it, we took the fly-rod with us.  If by chance
+another boat passed us in the estuary, we were never fishing, but
+only gathering flowers, or going for a picnic, or taking
+photographs.  But when the uninitiated ones had passed by, we would
+get out the rod again, and try a few more casts.
+
+One day in particular I remember, when Graygown and little Teddy
+were my companions.  We really had no hopes of angling, for the hour
+was mid-noon, and the day was warm and still.  But suddenly the
+trout, by one of those unaccountable freaks which make their
+disposition so interesting and attractive, began to rise all about
+us in a bend of the stream.
+
+"Look!" said Teddy; "wherever you see one of those big smiles on the
+water, I believe there's a fish!"
+
+Fortunately the rod was at hand.  Graygown and Teddy managed the
+boat and the landing-net with consummate skill.  We landed no less
+than a dozen beautiful fish at that most unlikely hour and then
+solemnly shook hands all around.
+
+There is a peculiar pleasure in doing a thing like this, catching
+trout in a place where nobody thinks of looking for them, and at an
+hour when everybody believes they cannot be caught.  It is more fun
+to take one good fish out of an old, fished-out stream, near at hand
+to the village, than to fill a basket from some far-famed and well-
+stocked water.  It is the unexpected touch that tickles our sense of
+pleasure.  While life lasts, we are always hoping for it and
+expecting it.  There is no country so civilized, no existence so
+humdrum, that there is not room enough in it somewhere for a lazy,
+idle brook, an encourager of indolence, with hope of happy
+surprises.
+
+
+
+THE OPEN FIRE
+
+
+ "It is a vulgar notion that a fire is only for heat.  A chief value
+of it is, however, to look at.  And it is never twice the same."--
+CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER: Backlog Studies.
+
+
+I
+
+LIGHTING UP
+
+
+Man is the animal that has made friends with the fire.
+
+All the other creatures, in their natural state, are afraid of it.
+They look upon it with wonder and dismay.  It fascinates them,
+sometimes, with its glittering eyes in the night.  The squirrels and
+the hares come pattering softly towards it through the underbrush
+around the new camp.  The fascinated deer stares into the blaze of
+the jack-light while the hunter's canoe creeps through the lily-
+pads.  But the charm that masters them is one of dread, not of love.
+It is the witchcraft of the serpent's lambent look.  When they know
+what it means, when the heat of the fire touches them, or even when
+its smell comes clearly to their most delicate sense, they recognize
+it as their enemy, the Wild Huntsman whose red hounds can follow,
+follow for days without wearying, growing stronger and more furious
+with every turn of the chase.  Let but a trail of smoke drift down
+the wind across the forest, and all the game for miles and miles
+will catch the signal for fear and flight.
+
+Many of the animals have learned how to make houses for themselves.
+The CABANE of the beaver is a wonder of neatness and comfort, much
+preferable to the wigwam of his Indian hunter.  The muskrat knows
+how thick and high to build the dome of his waterside cottage, in
+order to protect himself against the frost of the coming winter and
+the floods of the following spring.  The woodchuck's house has two
+or three doors; and the squirrel's dwelling is provided with a good
+bed and a convenient storehouse for nuts and acorns.  The sportive
+otters have a toboggan slide in front of their residence; and the
+moose in winter make a "yard," where they can take exercise
+comfortably and find shelter for sleep.  But there is one thing
+lacking in all these various dwellings,--a fireplace.
+
+Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire and to live with
+it.  The reason?  Because he alone has learned how to put it out.
+
+It is true that two of his humbler friends have been converted to
+fire-worship.  The dog and the cat, being half-humanized, have begun
+to love the fire.  I suppose that a cat seldom comes so near to
+feeling a true sense of affection as when she has finished her
+saucer of bread and milk, and stretched herself luxuriously
+underneath the kitchen stove, while her faithful mistress washes up
+the dishes.  As for a dog, I am sure that his admiring love for his
+master is never greater than when they come in together from the
+hunt, wet and tired, and the man gathers a pile of wood in front of
+the tent, touches it with a tiny magic wand, and suddenly the clear,
+consoling flame springs up, saying cheerfully, "Here we are, at home
+in the forest; come into the warmth; rest, and eat, and sleep."
+When the weary, shivering dog sees this miracle, he knows that his
+master is a great man and a lord of things.
+
+After all, that is the only real open fire.  Wood is the fuel for
+it.  Out-of-doors is the place for it.  A furnace is an underground
+prison for a toiling slave.  A stove is a cage for a tame bird.
+Even a broad hearthstone and a pair of glittering andirons--the best
+ornament of a room--must be accepted as an imitation of the real
+thing.  The veritable open fire is built in the open, with the whole
+earth for a fireplace and the sky for a chimney.
+
+To start a fire in the open is by no means as easy as it looks.  It
+is one of those simple tricks that every one thinks he can perform
+until he tries it.
+
+To do it without trying,--accidentally and unwillingly,--that, of
+course, is a thing for which any fool is fit.  You knock out the
+ashes from your pipe on a fallen log; you toss the end of a match
+into a patch of grass, green on top, but dry as punk underneath; you
+scatter the dead brands of an old fire among the moss,--a
+conflagration is under way before you know it.
+
+A fire in the woods is one thing; a comfort and a joy.  Fire in the
+woods is another thing; a terror, an uncontrollable fury, a burning
+shame.
+
+But the lighting up of a proper fire, kindly, approachable,
+serviceable, docile, is a work of intelligence.  If, perhaps, you
+have to do it in the rain, with a single match, it requires no
+little art and skill.
+
+There is plenty of wood everywhere, but not a bit to burn.  The
+fallen trees are waterlogged.  The dead leaves are as damp as grief.
+The charred sticks that you find in an old fireplace are absolutely
+incombustible.  Do not trust the handful of withered twigs and
+branches that you gather from the spruce-trees.  They seem dry, but
+they are little better for your purpose than so much asbestos.  You
+make a pile of them in some apparently suitable hollow, and lay a
+few larger sticks on top.  Then you hastily scratch your solitary
+match on the seat of your trousers and thrust it into the pile of
+twigs.  What happens?  The wind whirls around in your stupid little
+hollow, and the blue flame of the sulphur spirts and sputters for an
+instant, and then goes out.  Or perhaps there is a moment of
+stillness; the match flares up bravely; the nearest twigs catch
+fire, crackling and sparkling; you hurriedly lay on more sticks; but
+the fire deliberately dodges them, creeps to the corner of the pile
+where the twigs are fewest and dampest, snaps feebly a few times,
+and expires in smoke.  Now where are you?  How far is it to the
+nearest match?
+
+If you are wise, you will always make your fire before you light it.
+Time is never saved by doing a thing badly.
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE CAMP-FIRE
+
+
+In the making of fires there is as much difference as in the
+building of houses.  Everything depends upon the purpose that you
+have in view.  There is the camp-fire, and the cooking-fire, and the
+smudge-fire, and the little friendship-fire,--not to speak of other
+minor varieties.  Each of these has its own proper style of
+architecture, and to mix them is false art and poor economy.
+
+The object of the camp-fire is to give heat, and incidentally light,
+to your tent or shanty.  You can hardly build this kind of a fire
+unless you have a good axe and know how to chop.  For the first
+thing that you need is a solid backlog, the thicker the better, to
+hold the heat and reflect it into the tent.  This log must not be
+too dry, or it will burn out quickly.  Neither must it be too damp,
+else it will smoulder and discourage the fire.  The best wood for it
+is the body of a yellow birch, and, next to that, a green balsam.
+It should be five or six feet long, and at least two and a half feet
+in diameter.  If you cannot find a tree thick enough, cut two or
+three lengths of a smaller one; lay the thickest log on the ground
+first, about ten or twelve feet in front of the tent; drive two
+strong stakes behind it, slanting a little backward; and lay the
+other logs on top of the first, resting against the stakes.
+
+Now you are ready for the hand-chunks, or andirons.  These are
+shorter sticks of wood, eight or ten inches thick, laid at right
+angles to the backlog, four or five feet apart.  Across these you
+are to build up the firewood proper.
+
+Use a dry spruce-tree, not one that has fallen, but one that is dead
+and still standing, if you want a lively, snapping fire.  Use a hard
+maple or a hickory if you want a fire that will burn steadily and
+make few sparks.  But if you like a fire to blaze up at first with a
+splendid flame, and then burn on with an enduring heat far into the
+night, a young white birch with the bark on is the tree to choose.
+Six or eight round sticks of this laid across the hand-chunks, with
+perhaps a few quarterings of a larger tree, will make a glorious
+fire.
+
+But before you put these on, you must be ready to light up.  A few
+splinters of dry spruce or pine or balsam, stood endwise against the
+backlog, or, better still, piled up in a pyramid between the hand-
+chunks; a few strips of birch-bark; and one good match,--these are
+all that you want.  But be sure that your match is a good one.  It
+is better to see to this before you go into the brush.  Your
+comfort, even your life, may depend on it.
+
+"AVEC CES ALLUMETTES-LA," said my guide at LAC ST. JEAN one day, as
+he vainly tried to light his pipe with a box of parlour matches from
+the hotel,--AVEC CES GNOGNOTTES D'ALLUMETTES ON POURRA MOURIR AU
+BOIS!"
+
+In the woods, the old-fashioned brimstone match of our grandfathers--
+the match with a brown head and a stout stick and a dreadful smell--
+is the best.  But if you have only one, do not trust even that to
+light your fire directly.  Use it first to touch off a roll of
+birch-bark which you hold in your hand.  Then, when the bark is well
+alight, crinkling and curling, push it under the heap of kindlings,
+give the flame time to take a good hold, and lay your wood over it,
+a stick at a time, until the whole pile is blazing.  Now your fire
+is started.  Your friendly little red-haired gnome is ready to serve
+you through the night.
+
+He will dry your clothes if you are wet.  He will cheer you up if
+you are despondent.  He will diffuse an air of sociability through
+the camp, and draw the men together in a half circle for
+storytelling and jokes and singing.  He will hold a flambeau for you
+while you spread your blankets on the boughs and dress for bed.  He
+will keep you warm while you sleep,--at least till about three
+o'clock in the morning, when you dream that you are out sleighing in
+your pajamas, and wake up with a shiver.
+
+"HOLA, FERDINAND, FRANCOIS!" you call out from your bed, pulling the
+blankets over your ears; "RAMANCHEZ LE FEU, S'IL VOUS PLAIT.  C'EST
+UN FREITE DE CHIEN."
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE COOKING-FIRE
+
+
+Of course such a fire as I have been describing can be used for
+cooking, when it has burned down a little, and there is a bed of hot
+embers in front of the backlog.  But a correct kitchen fire should
+be constructed after another fashion.  What you want now is not
+blaze, but heat, and that not diffused, but concentrated.  You must
+be able to get close to your fire without burning your boots or
+scorching your face.
+
+If you have time and the material, make a fireplace of big stones.
+But not of granite, for that will split with the heat, and perhaps
+fly in your face.
+
+If you are in a hurry and there are no suitable stones at hand, lay
+two good logs nearly parallel with each other, a foot or so apart,
+and build your fire between them.  For a cooking-fire, use split
+wood in short sticks.  Let the first supply burn to glowing coals
+before you begin.  A frying-pan that is lukewarm one minute and red-
+hot the next is the abomination of desolation.  If you want black
+toast, have it made before a fresh, sputtering, blazing heap of
+wood.
+
+In fires, as in men, an excess of energy is a lack of usefulness.
+The best work is done without many sparks.  Just enough is the right
+kind of a fire and a feast.
+
+To know how to cook is not a very elegant accomplishment.  Yet there
+are times and seasons when it seems to come in better than
+familiarity with the dead languages, or much skill upon the lute.
+
+You cannot always rely on your guides for a tasteful preparation of
+food.  Many of them are ignorant of the difference between frying
+and broiling, and their notion of boiling a potato or a fish is to
+reduce it to a pulp.  Now and then you find a man who has a natural
+inclination to the culinary art, and who does very well within
+familiar limits.
+
+Old Edouard, the Montaignais Indian who cooked for my friends H. E.
+G. and C. S. D. last summer on the STE. MARGUERITE EN BAS, was such
+a man.  But Edouard could not read, and the only way he could tell
+the nature of the canned provisions was by the pictures on the cans.
+If the picture was strange to him, there was no guessing what he
+would do with the contents of the can.  He was capable of roasting
+strawberries, and serving green peas cold for dessert.  One day a
+can of mullagatawny soup and a can of apricots were handed out to
+him simultaneously and without explanations.  Edouard solved the
+problem by opening both cans and cooking them together.  We had a
+new soup that day, MULLAGATAWNY AUX APRICOTS.  It was not as bad as
+it sounds.  It tasted somewhat like chutney.
+
+The real reason why food that is cooked over an open fire tastes so
+good to us is because we are really hungry when we get it.  The man
+who puts up provisions for camp has a great advantage over the
+dealers who must satisfy the pampered appetite of people in houses.
+I never can get any bacon in New York like that which I buy at a
+little shop in Quebec to take into the woods.  If I ever set up in
+the grocery business, I shall try to get a good trade among anglers.
+It will be easy to please my customers.
+
+The reputation that trout enjoy as a food-fish is partly due to the
+fact that they are usually cooked over an open fire.  In the city
+they never taste as good.  It is not merely a difference in
+freshness.  It is a change in the sauce.  If the truth must be told,
+even by an angler, there are at least five salt-water fish which are
+better than trout,--to eat.  There is none better to catch.
+
+
+IV
+
+THE SMUDGE-FIRE
+
+
+But enough of the cooking-fire.  Let us turn now to the subject of
+the smudge, known in Lower Canada as LA BOUCANE.  The smudge owes
+its existence to the pungent mosquito, the sanguinary black-fly, and
+the peppery midge,--LE MARINGOUIN, LA MOUSTIQUE, ET LE BRULOT.  To
+what it owes its English name I do not know; but its French name
+means simply a thick, nauseating, intolerable smoke.
+
+The smudge is called into being for the express purpose of creating
+a smoke of this kind, which is as disagreeable to the mosquito, the
+black-fly, and the midge as it is to the man whom they are
+devouring.  But the man survives the smoke, while the insects
+succumb to it, being destroyed or driven away.  Therefore the
+smudge, dark and bitter in itself, frequently becomes, like
+adversity, sweet in its uses.  It must be regarded as a form of fire
+with which man has made friends under the pressure of a cruel
+necessity.
+
+It would seem as if it ought to be the simplest affair in the world
+to light up a smudge.  And so it is--if you are not trying.
+
+An attempt to produce almost any other kind of a fire will bring
+forth smoke abundantly.  But when you deliberately undertake to
+create a smudge, flames break from the wettest timber, and green
+moss blazes with a furious heat.  You hastily gather handfuls of
+seemingly incombustible material and throw it on the fire, but the
+conflagration increases.  Grass and green leaves hesitate for an
+instant and then flash up like tinder.  The more you put on, the
+more your smudge rebels against its proper task of smudging.  It
+makes a pleasant warmth, to encourage the black-flies; and bright
+light to attract and cheer the mosquitoes.  Your effort is a
+brilliant failure.
+
+The proper way to make a smudge is this.  Begin with a very little,
+lowly fire.  Let it be bright, but not ambitious.  Don't try to make
+a smoke yet.
+
+Then gather a good supply of stuff which seems likely to suppress
+fire without smothering it.  Moss of a certain kind will do, but not
+the soft, feathery moss that grows so deep among the spruce-trees.
+Half-decayed wood is good; spongy, moist, unpleasant stuff, a
+vegetable wet blanket.  The bark of dead evergreen trees, hemlock,
+spruce, or balsam, is better still.  Gather a plentiful store of it.
+But don't try to make a smoke yet.
+
+Let your fire burn a while longer; cheer it up a little.  Get some
+clear, resolute, unquenchable coals aglow in the heart of it.  Don't
+try to make a smoke yet.
+
+Now pile on your smouldering fuel.  Fan it with your hat.  Kneel
+down and blow it, and in ten minutes you will have a smoke that will
+make you wish you had never been born.
+
+That is the proper way to make a smudge.  But the easiest way is to
+ask your guide to make it for you.
+
+If he makes it in an old iron pot, so much the better, for then you
+can move it around to the windward when the breeze veers, and carry
+it into your tent without risk of setting everything on fire, and
+even take it with you in the canoe while you are fishing.
+
+Some of the pleasantest pictures in the angler's gallery of
+remembrance are framed in the smoke that rises from a smudge.
+
+With my eyes shut, I can call up a vision of eight birch-bark canoes
+floating side by side on Moosehead Lake, on a fair June morning,
+fifteen years ago.  They are anchored off Green Island, riding
+easily on the long, gentle waves.  In the stern of each canoe there
+is a guide with a long-handled net; in the bow, an angler with a
+light fly-rod; in the middle, a smudge-kettle, smoking steadily.  In
+the air to the windward of the little fleet hovers a swarm of flies
+drifting down on the shore breeze, with bloody purpose in their
+breasts, but baffled by the protecting smoke.  In the water to the
+leeward plays a school of speckled trout, feeding on the minnows
+that hang around the sunken ledges of rock.  As a larger wave than
+usual passes over the ledges, it lifts the fish up, and you can see
+the big fellows, three, and four, and even five pounds apiece,
+poising themselves in the clear brown water.  A long cast will send
+the fly over one of them.  Let it sink a foot.  Draw it up with a
+fluttering motion.  Now the fish sees it, and turns to catch it.
+There is a yellow gleam in the depth, a sudden swirl on the surface;
+you strike sharply, and the trout is matching his strength against
+the spring of your four ounces of split bamboo.
+
+You can guess at his size, as he breaks water, by the breadth of his
+tail: a pound of weight to an inch of tail,--that is the traditional
+measure, and it usually comes pretty close to the mark, at least in
+the case of large fish.  But it is never safe to record the weight
+until the trout is in the canoe.  As the Canadian hunters say, "Sell
+not the skin of the bear while he carries it."
+
+Now the breeze that blows over Green Island drops away, and the
+smoke of the eight smudge-kettles falls like a thick curtain.  The
+canoes, the dark shores of Norcross Point, the twin peaks of Spencer
+Mountain, the dim blue summit of Katahdin, the dazzling sapphire
+sky, the flocks of fleece-white clouds shepherded on high by the
+western wind, all have vanished.  With closed eyes I see another
+vision, still framed in smoke,--a vision of yesterday.
+
+It is a wild river flowing into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the
+COTE NORD, far down towards Labrador.  There is a long, narrow,
+swift pool between two parallel ridges of rock.  Over the ridge on
+the right pours a cataract of pale yellow foam.  At the bottom of
+the pool, the water slides down into a furious rapid, and dashes
+straight through an impassable gorge half a mile to the sea.  The
+pool is full of salmon, leaping merrily in their delight at coming
+into their native stream.  The air is full of black-flies, rejoicing
+in the warmth of the July sun.  On a slippery point of rock, below
+the fall, are two anglers, tempting the fish and enduring the flies.
+Behind them is an old HABITANT raising a mighty column of smoke.
+
+Through the cloudy pillar which keeps back the Egyptian host, you
+see the waving of a long rod.  A silver-gray fly with a barbed tail
+darts out across the pool, swings around with the current, well
+under water, and slowly works past the big rock in the centre, just
+at the head of the rapid.  Almost past it, but not quite: for
+suddenly the fly disappears; the line begins to run out; the reel
+sings sharp and shrill; a salmon is hooked.
+
+But how well is he hooked?  That is the question.  This is no easy
+pool to play a fish in.  There is no chance to jump into a canoe and
+drop below him, and get the current to help you in drowning him.
+You cannot follow him along the shore.  You cannot even lead him
+into quiet water, where the gaffer can creep near to him unseen and
+drag him in with a quick stroke.  You must fight your fish to a
+finish, and all the advantages are on his side.  The current is
+terribly strong.  If he makes up his mind to go downstream to the
+sea, the only thing you can do is to hold him by main force; and
+then it is ten to one that the hook tears out or the leader breaks.
+
+It is not in human nature for one man to watch another handling a
+fish in such a place without giving advice.  "Keep the tip of your
+rod up.  Don't let your reel overrun.  Stir him up a little, he 's
+sulking.  Don't let him 'jig,' or you'll lose him.  You 're playing
+him too hard.  There, he 's going to jump again.  Drop your tip.
+Stop him, quick! he 's going down the rapid!"
+
+Of course the man who is playing the salmon does not like this.  If
+he is quick-tempered, sooner or later he tells his counsellor to
+shut up.  But if he is a gentle, early-Christian kind of a man, wise
+as a serpent and harmless as a dove, he follows the advice that is
+given to him, promptly and exactly.  Then, when it is all ended, and
+he has seen the big fish, with the line over his shoulder, poised
+for an instant on the crest of the first billow of the rapid, and
+has felt the leader stretch and give and SNAP!--then he can have the
+satisfaction, while he reels in his slack line, of saying to his
+friend, "Well, old man, I did everything just as you told me.  But I
+think if I had pushed that fish a little harder at the beginning, AS
+I WANTED TO, I might have saved him."
+
+But really, of course, the chances were all against it.  In such a
+pool, most of the larger fish get away.  Their weight gives them a
+tremendous pull.  The fish that are stopped from going into the
+rapid, and dragged back from the curling wave, are usually the
+smaller ones.  Here they are,--twelve pounds, eight pounds, six
+pounds, five pounds and a half, FOUR POUNDS!  Is not this the
+smallest salmon that you ever saw?  Not a grilse, you understand,
+but a real salmon, of brightest silver, hall-marked with St.
+Andrew's cross.
+
+Now let us sit down for a moment and watch the fish trying to leap
+up the falls.  There is a clear jump of about ten feet, and above
+that an apparently impossible climb of ten feet more up a ladder of
+twisting foam.  A salmon darts from the boiling water at the bottom
+of the fall like an arrow from a bow.  He rises in a beautiful
+curve, fins laid close to his body and tail quivering; but he has
+miscalculated his distance.  He is on the downward curve when the
+water strikes him and tumbles him back.  A bold little fish, not
+more than eighteen inches long, makes a jump at the side of the
+fall, where the water is thin, and is rolled over and over in the
+spray.  A larger salmon rises close beside us with a tremendous
+rush, bumps his nose against a jutting rock, and flops back into the
+pool.  Now comes a fish who has made his calculations exactly.  He
+leaves the pool about eight feet from the foot of the fall, rises
+swiftly, spreads his fins, and curves his tail as if he were flying,
+strikes the water where it is thickest just below the brink, holds
+on desperately, and drives himself, with one last wriggle, through
+the bending stream, over the edge, and up the first step of the
+foaming stairway.  He has obeyed the strongest instinct of his
+nature, and gone up to make love in the highest fresh water that he
+can reach.
+
+The smoke of the smudge-fire is sharp and tearful, but a man can
+learn to endure a good deal of it when he can look through its rings
+at such scenes as these.
+
+
+V
+
+THE LITTLE FRIENDSHIP-FIRE
+
+
+There are times and seasons when the angler has no need of any of
+the three fires of which we have been talking.  He sleeps in a
+house.  His breakfast and dinner are cooked for him in a kitchen.
+He is in no great danger from black-flies or mosquitoes.  All he
+needs now, as he sets out to spend a day on the Neversink, or the
+Willowemoc, or the Shepaug, or the Swiftwater, is a good lunch in
+his pocket, and a little friendship-fire to burn pleasantly beside
+him while he eats his frugal fare and prolongs his noonday rest.
+
+This form of fire does less work than any other in the world.  Yet
+it is far from being useless; and I, for one, should be sorry to
+live without it.  Its only use is to make a visible centre of
+interest where there are two or three anglers eating their lunch
+together, or to supply a kind of companionship to a lone fisherman.
+It is kindled and burns for no other purpose than to give you the
+sense of being at home and at ease.  Why the fire should do this, I
+cannot tell, but it does.
+
+You may build your friendship-fire in almost any way that pleases
+you; but this is the way in which you shall build it best.  You have
+no axe, of course, so you must look about for the driest sticks that
+you can find.  Do not seek them close beside the stream, for there
+they are likely to be water-soaked; but go back into the woods a bit
+and gather a good armful of fuel.  Then break it, if you can, into
+lengths of about two feet, and construct your fire in the following
+fashion.
+
+Lay two sticks parallel, and put between them a pile of dried grass,
+dead leaves, small twigs, and the paper in which your lunch was
+wrapped.  Then lay two other sticks crosswise on top of your first
+pair.  Strike your match and touch your kindlings.  As the fire
+catches, lay on other pairs of sticks, each pair crosswise to the
+pair that is below it, until you have a pyramid of flame.  This is
+"a Micmac fire" such as the Indians make in the woods.
+
+Now you can pull off your wading-boots and warm your feet at the
+blaze.  You can toast your bread if you like.  You can even make
+shift to broil one of your trout, fastened on the end of a birch
+twig if you have a fancy that way.  When your hunger is satisfied,
+you shake out the crumbs for the birds and the squirrels, pick up a
+stick with a coal at the end to light your pipe, put some more wood
+on your fire, and settle down for an hour's reading if you have a
+book in your pocket, or for a good talk if you have a comrade with
+you.
+
+The stream of time flows swift and smooth, by such a fire as this.
+The moments slip past unheeded; the sun sinks down his western arch;
+the shadows begin to fall across the brook; it is time to move on
+for the afternoon fishing.  The fire has almost burned out.  But do
+not trust it too much.  Throw some sand over it, or bring a hatful
+of water from the brook to pour on it, until you are sure that the
+last glowing ember is extinguished, and nothing but the black coals
+and the charred ends of the sticks are left.
+
+Even the little friendship-fire must keep the law of the bush.  All
+lights out when their purpose is fulfilled!
+
+
+
+VI
+
+ALTARS OF REMEMBRANCE
+
+
+It is a question that we have often debated, in the informal
+meetings of our Petrine Club: Which is pleasanter,--to fish an old
+stream, or a new one?
+
+The younger members are all for the "fresh woods and pastures new."
+They speak of the delight of turning off from the high-road into
+some faintly-marked trail; following it blindly through the forest,
+not knowing how far you have to go; hearing the voice of waters
+sounding through the woodland; leaving the path impatiently and
+striking straight across the underbrush; scrambling down a steep
+bank, pushing through a thicket of alders, and coming out suddenly,
+face to face with a beautiful, strange brook.  It reminds you, of
+course, of some old friend.  It is a little like the Beaverkill, or
+the Ausable, or the Gale River.  And yet it is different.  Every
+stream has its own character and disposition.  Your new acquaintance
+invites you to a day of discoveries.  If the water is high, you will
+follow it down, and have easy fishing.  If the water is low, you
+will go upstream, and fish "fine and far-off."  Every turn in the
+avenue which the little river has made for you opens up a new view,--
+a rocky gorge where the deep pools are divided by white-footed
+falls; a lofty forest where the shadows are deep and the trees arch
+overhead; a flat, sunny stretch where the stream is spread out, and
+pebbly islands divide the channels, and the big fish are lurking at
+the sides in the sheltered corners under the bushes.  From scene to
+scene you follow on, delighted and expectant, until the night
+suddenly drops its veil, and then you will be lucky if you can find
+your way home in the dark!
+
+Yes, it is all very good, this exploration of new streams.  But, for
+my part, I like still better to go back to a familiar little river,
+and fish or dream along the banks where I have dreamed and fished
+before.  I know every bend and curve: the sharp turn where the water
+runs under the roots of the old hemlock-tree; the snaky glen, where
+the alders stretch their arms far out across the stream; the meadow
+reach, where the trout are fat and silvery, and will only rise about
+sunrise or sundown, unless the day is cloudy; the Naiad's Elbow,
+where the brook rounds itself, smooth and dimpled, to embrace a
+cluster of pink laurel-bushes.  All these I know; yes, and almost
+every current and eddy and backwater I know long before I come to
+it.  I remember where I caught the big trout the first year I came
+to the stream; and where I lost a bigger one.  I remember the pool
+where there were plenty of good fish last year, and wonder whether
+they are there now.
+
+Better things than these I remember: the companions with whom I have
+followed the stream in days long past; the rendezvous with a comrade
+at the place where the rustic bridge crosses the brook; the hours of
+sweet converse beside the friendship-fire; the meeting at twilight
+with my lady Graygown and the children, who have come down by the
+wood-road to walk home with me.
+
+Surely it is pleasant to follow an old stream.  Flowers grow along
+its banks which are not to be found anywhere else in the wide world.
+"There is rosemary, that 's for remembrance; and there is pansies,
+that 's for thoughts!"
+
+One May evening, a couple of years since, I was angling in the
+Swiftwater, and came upon Joseph Jefferson, stretched out on a large
+rock in midstream, and casting the fly down a long pool.  He had
+passed the threescore years and ten, but he was as eager and as
+happy as a boy in his fishing.
+
+"You here!" I cried.  "What good fortune brought you into these
+waters?"
+
+"Ah," he answered, "I fished this brook forty-five years ago.  It
+was in the Paradise Valley that I first thought of Rip Van Winkle.
+I wanted to come back again for the sake of old times."
+
+But what has all this to do with an open fire?  I will tell you.  It
+is at the places along the stream, where the little flames of love
+and friendship have been kindled in bygone days, that the past
+returns most vividly.  These are the altars of remembrance.
+
+It is strange how long a small fire will leave its mark.  The
+charred sticks, the black coals, do not decay easily.  If they lie
+well up the hank, out of reach of the spring floods, they will stay
+there for years.  If you have chanced to build a rough fireplace of
+stones from the brook, it seems almost as if it would last forever.
+
+There is a mossy knoll beneath a great butternut-tree on the
+Swiftwater where such a fireplace was built four years ago; and
+whenever I come to that place now I lay the rod aside, and sit down
+for a little while by the fast-flowing water, and remember.
+
+This is what I see: A man wading up the stream, with a creel over
+his shoulder, and perhaps a dozen trout in it; two little lads in
+gray corduroys running down the path through the woods to meet him,
+one carrying a frying-pan and a kettle, the other with a basket of
+lunch on his arm.  Then I see the bright flames leaping up in the
+fireplace, and hear the trout sizzling in the pan, and smell the
+appetizing odour.  Now I see the lads coming back across the foot-
+bridge that spans the stream, with a bottle of milk from the nearest
+farmhouse.  They are laughing and teetering as they balance along
+the single plank.  Now the table is spread on the moss.  How good
+the lunch tastes!  Never were there such pink-fleshed trout, such
+crisp and savoury slices of broiled bacon.  Douglas, (the beloved
+doll that the younger lad shamefacedly brings out from the pocket of
+his jacket,) must certainly have some of it.  And after the lunch is
+finished, and the bird's portion has been scattered on the moss, we
+creep carefully on our hands and knees to the edge of the brook, and
+look over the bank at the big trout that is poising himself in the
+amber water.  We have tried a dozen times to catch him, but never
+succeeded.  The next time, perhaps--
+
+Well, the fireplace is still standing.  The butternut-tree spreads
+its broad branches above the stream.  The violets and the bishop's-
+caps and the wild anemones are sprinkled over the banks.  The
+yellow-throat and the water-thrush and the vireos still sing the
+same tunes in the thicket.  And the elder of the two lads often
+comes back with me to that pleasant place and shares my fisherman's
+luck beside the Swiftwater.
+
+But the younger lad?
+
+Ah, my little Barney, you have gone to follow a new stream,--clear
+as crystal,--flowing through fields of wonderful flowers that never
+fade.  It is a strange river to Teddy and me; strange and very far
+away.  Some day we shall see it with you; and you will teach us the
+names of those blossoms that do not wither.  But till then, little
+Barney, the other lad and I will follow the old stream that flows by
+the woodland fireplace,--your altar.
+
+Rue grows here.  Yes, there is plenty of rue.  But there is also
+rosemary, that 's for remembrance!  And close beside it I see a
+little heart's-ease.
+
+
+
+A SLUMBER SONG
+
+FOR THE FISHERMAN'S CHILD
+
+
+Furl your sail, my little boatie;
+    Here 's the haven, still and deep,
+Where the dreaming tides, in-streaming,
+         Up the channel creep.
+See, the sunset breeze is dying;
+Hark, the plover, landward flying,
+Softly down the twilight crying;
+    Come to anchor, little boatie,
+        In the port of Sleep.
+
+Far away, my little boatie,
+    Roaring waves are white with foam;
+Ships are striving, onward driving,
+        Day and night they roam.
+Father 's at the deep-sea trawling,
+In the darkness, rowing, hauling,
+While the hungry winds are calling,--
+    God protect him, little boatie,
+        Bring him safely home!
+
+Not for you, my little boatie,
+    Is the wide and weary sea;
+You 're too slender, and too tender,
+        You must rest with me.
+All day long you have been straying
+Up and down the shore and playing;
+Come to port, make no delaying!
+    Day is over, little boatie,
+        Night falls suddenly.
+
+Furl your sail, my little boatie;
+    Fold your wings, my tired dove.
+Dews are sprinkling, stars are twinkling
+        Drowsily above.
+Cease from sailing, cease from rowing;
+Rock upon the dream-tide, knowing
+Safely o'er your rest are glowing,
+    All the night, my little boatie,
+        Harbour-lights of love.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg etext of Fisherman's Luck
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