BERKELEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
er 
 
FISHERMAN S LUCK 
 
 by HENRY VAN DYKE 
 
WORKS BY 
 HENRY VAN DYKE 
 
 SIX DAYS. OF THE WEEK 
 
 LITTLE RIVERS 
 
 FISHERMAN S LUCK 
 
 DAYS OFF 
 
 THE BLUE FLOWER 
 
 THE VALLEY OF VISION 
 
 CAMP-FIRES AND GUIDE- 
 POSTS 
 
 COMPANIONABLE BOOKS 
 
 POEMS, COLLECTION IN ONE 
 VOLUME 
 
 GOLDEN STARS 
 
 THE RED FLOWER 
 
 MUSIC, AND?OTHER JPOEMS 
 
 THE TOILING OF FELIX, 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 OUT OF DOORS IN THE HOLY 
 LAND 
 
 FIGHTING FOR PEACE 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON, Ltd. 
 PUBLISHERS LONDON, E.C-4 
 
FISHERMAN S 
 LUCK 
 
 AND SOME OTHER UNCERTAIN THINGS 
 by 
 
 HENRY .VAN DYKE 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 LIMITED LONDON 
 
" 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. 
 
 Copyright New York 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 Made and Printed in Great Britain. 
 Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 
 
Dedication 
 
 TO 
 
 MY LADY GREYGOWN 
 
 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. 
 
 M856178 
 
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 
 7 
 
 PACK 
 
 9 
 
 . 42 
 
 56 
 . 81 
 . 101 
 . 117 
 
 134 
 . 160 
 
8 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XI. THE OPEN FIRE ^. .. U . . 215 
 
 XII. A SLUMBER SONG .... 245 
 
 INDEX . . * >* . , . 247 
 
Fisherman s Luck 
 
 " She could not conceive a game wanting the sprightly 
 infusion of chance, the handsome excuses of good for 
 tune." CHARLES LAMB: Essays of Elia. 
 
 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 ordi 
 nary " 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. 
 I* 9 
 
io Fisherman s Luck 
 
 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 un 
 derground 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 thorough 
 bred 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 em- 
 
Fisherman s Luck II 
 
 ployment might evolve its own appropriate 
 greeting. Some of them would be queer, no 
 doubt; but at least they would be an improve 
 ment 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 
 
 ff 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. 
 
12 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 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 in 
 tervene. The state of the weather, the height of 
 the water, the appetite of the fish, the presence 
 or absence of other anglers all these indeter 
 minable 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 
 
Fisherman s Luck 13 
 
 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 Alle- 
 ghany Mountains, I have found a curious tradi 
 tion 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 for 
 tunate 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 hick 
 
14 Fisherman s 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 un 
 earned 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 South-west 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 won 
 drous 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. 3 
 
 But all this, you must remember, depends 
 upon something secret and incalculable, some- 
 
Fisherman s Luck 15 
 
 thing 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 float 
 ing 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 ses 
 sion. 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 
 
1 6 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 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 incon 
 siderable 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 power 
 fully 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 perad- 
 venture. They do not know at this moment 
 
Fisherman s Luck 
 
 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 grey-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 lan 
 guage, 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 im 
 poverished. 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 diffi 
 cult to see the harm in it. Indeed, a daring 
 moralist might even assert, and prove by argu 
 ment, 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 
 maintained that God would never have created 
 
1 8 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 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 exhilara 
 tion 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 im 
 proper 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 im 
 morality, the irreverence, the atheism in such a 
 supposition? Certainly God must be compe 
 tent to govern a world in which there are possi 
 bilities of various kinds, just as well as one in 
 which every event is inevitably determined be- 
 
Fisherman s Luck 19 
 
 forehand. 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 anyone 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 draught 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, unchange 
 able, clearly foreseeable order of things does not 
 suit our constitution. It tends to melancholy 
 and a fatty heart. Creatures of habit we are un 
 doubtedly ; 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, 
 
2O Fisherman s Luck 
 
 and unless the unexpected sometimes happens to 
 us, we are most grievously disappointed. 
 
 Much of the tediousness of highly civilised 
 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 reason 
 ably sure to come to pass. The best way of 
 escape from this Tcedium vita is through a re 
 creation 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 apprehen 
 sion, to observe how many people in New Eng 
 land, 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-gipsying for a fortnight among the mountains 
 
Fisherman s Luck 21 
 
 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 buck- 
 board. The Fortunate Isles are within sailing 
 distance in a dory. And a voyage on the river 
 Pactolus is open to anyone 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 
 
22 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 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 es 
 caped 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 gro 
 cers, 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 in 
 teresting 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 unpro 
 fitable as adding up a column of figures. They 
 might as well be brought up in an incubator. 
 
Fisherman s Luck 23 
 
 But when man abides in tents, after the man 
 ner 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 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 
 
24 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 the return of fair weather. The tent is per 
 fectly 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 disadvan 
 tages. 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 bet 
 ter 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 
 
Fisherman s Luck 25 
 
 the grey light glimmers through the canvas. In 
 a little while you will know your fate. 
 
 Look! There is^a patch of bright yellow ra 
 diance 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 en 
 circling 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 
 
26 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 is fresh and sweet, calm and clear and bright. 
 
 Twas rather a rude jest of Nature, that tem 
 pest 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 whe 
 ther 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 plea 
 sant, 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 wis 
 dom to be prepared for disappointments and 
 grateful for all kinds of small mercies. 
 
 There is a story in that fragrant book, The 
 
Fisherman s Luck 27 
 
 Little Flowers of St. Francis, which I wish to 
 transcribe here, without tying a moral to it, lest 
 anyone should accuse me of preaching. 
 
 " Hence [says the quaint old chronicler], hav 
 ing assigned to his companions the other parts 
 of the world, St. Francis, taking Brother Maxi- 
 mus as his comrade, set forth toward the pro 
 vince 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 an 
 other. 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 mouth- 
 fuls 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 
 
28 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 that the pieces of bread begged by Brother 
 Maximus were bigger and better than his own, 
 rejoiced greatly, saying, * Oh, Brother Maxi 
 mus, we are not worthy of so great a treasure. 
 As he repeated these words many times, Bro 
 ther 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 trea 
 sure, 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 
 
Fisherman s Luck 29 
 
 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 on 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 vari 
 ations, 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, 
 
30 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 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 be 
 fore 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 iden 
 tified, a loud, cheery, rustic cadence sound 
 ing from a low pine-tree close beside him. 
 He looks up carefully through the needles and 
 discovers a hooded warbler, a tiny, restless crea 
 ture, 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 
 
Fisherman s Luck 31 
 
 about its golden head. He will never forget 
 that song again. It will make the woods seem 
 home-like 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 we; 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 prowl 
 ing hawk or driven out by nest-hunters. But 
 now, without notice, the luck changes. A sur 
 prise-party of redstarts breaks into full play 
 around him. All through the dark-green 
 shadow of the hemlocks they flash like little 
 candles candditas, 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 recognise or pleasanter to 
 watch. They run along the branches and dart 
 and tumble through the air in fearless chase of 
 
32 
 
 invisible flies and moths. All the time they keep 
 unfolding and furling their rounded tails, 
 spreading them out and waving them and clos 
 ing them suddenly, just as the Cuban girls man 
 age their fans. In fact, the redstarts are the 
 tiny fantail pigeons of the forest. 
 
 There are other things about the birds, be 
 sides their musical talents and their good looks, 
 that the fisherman has a chance to observe on 
 his lucky days. He may see 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 in 
 compatible with nervousness, and that heroism 
 does not mean the absence of fear, but the con 
 quest 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 even 
 ing last summer I was walking up the Risti- 
 gouche from Camp Harmony to fish for salmon 
 at Mowett s Rock, where my canoe was waiting 
 
Fisherman s Luck 33 
 
 for me. As I stepped out from a thicket on to 
 the shingly bank of the river, a spotted sand 
 piper 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 grey 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 flut 
 tered 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 some 
 thing, 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 dis- 
 
34 
 
 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 appeared in the bushes as if by magic. I won 
 dered 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 clever 
 ness 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, 
 
Fisherman s Luck 35 
 
 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 sparkle of triumph in his eye. " It 
 is naught, it is naught," he says, in modest de 
 preciation 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 nar 
 rate 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 short. Listen to this tale as it is 
 told, with endless variations, by every man who 
 has brought home a fine fish, and you will per 
 ceive that the fisherman does care for his luck, 
 after all. 
 
36 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 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 messen 
 ger 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 beha 
 viour of the angler. He, more than other men, 
 is dependent for his success upon the favour of 
 an unseen benefactor. Let his skill and indus 
 try 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. 
 
Fisherman* s Luck 37 
 
 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, de 
 spairing, 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 mantained, an art; 
 yet, because fortune still plays a controlling hand 
 in the game, its net results should never be 
 
38 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 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 Provi 
 dence 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 sal 
 mon, 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 tum 
 bling 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 
 
Fisherman s Luck 39 
 
 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 Royal 
 ist, 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 
 
4 o 
 
 Fisherman s Luck 
 
 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 books, 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 medita 
 tion, 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 
 
Fisherman s Luck 41 
 
 lies a purpose of good, and over it all there 
 watches a providence of blessing. 
 
 In the school of life many branches of know 
 ledge 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 ex 
 citement 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. 
 
 VERY moment of life, I suppose, is more 
 or less of a turning-point. Opportuni 
 ties are swarming around us all the time, thicker 
 than gnats at sundown. We walk through a 
 cloud of chances, and if we were always con 
 scious 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 
 
 42 
 
The Thrilling Moment 43 
 
 awake. We perceive how delicately our for 
 tune 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 walk 
 ing ; the air was clear and crisp, and all the hills 
 around us were glowing with the crimson foli 
 age of those little bushes which God created to 
 
4.4 The Thrilling Moment 
 
 make burned lands look beautiful. The trail 
 ended in a precipitous gully, down which we 
 scrambled with high hopes, and fishing-rods un 
 broken, 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 eat 
 ing blueberries, which he always did with great 
 cheerfulness. But I, being more cast down 
 than either of my comrades, sought out a con 
 venient seat among the rocks, and, adapting my 
 
The Thrilling Moment 45 
 
 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 for 
 tunate 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 ang 
 lers. 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 expecta 
 tions which might never be realised. My imme 
 diate duty was to get within casting distance of 
 that salmon as soon as possible. 
 
 The way along the shore of the pool was dif 
 ficult. The bank was very steep, and the rocks 
 
46 The Thrilling Moment 
 
 by the river s edge were broken and glibbery. 
 Presently I came to a sheer wall of stone, per 
 haps 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 pro 
 bably result in an even greater increase of know 
 ledge 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 
 
The Thrilling Moment 47 
 
 go back would have been dangerous. An ang 
 ler 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 shal 
 low 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 my 
 self 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 
 
48 The Thrilling Moment 
 
 remain there for some time. So I took out my 
 fly-book and prepared to angle for him accord 
 ing 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 Unpro 
 nounceable River by undue haste in fishing for 
 him. 
 
 I carefully tested a brand-new leader, and at 
 tached 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 
 
The Thrilling Moment 49 
 
 anxiety a man can spend on an apparently sim 
 ple 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 sales 
 man 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, 
 in 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 some 
 thing 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. 
 
50 The Thrilling Moment 
 
 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 Mont 
 real. 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 har 
 mony with the sky, and therefore less noticeable. 
 Accordingly I put on a Professor and a Par- 
 macheene Belle; but this combination of learn 
 ing 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. 
 
The Thrilling Moment 
 
 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 imbe 
 ciles 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 fulfil 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, 
 
52 The Thrilling Moment 
 
 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 Sep 
 tember, 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 embar 
 rassments. 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. 
 
 " Holal Ferdinand!" I cried. " App orte 
 la nette, vitel A beauty! Hurry up!" 
 
 I thought it must be an hour while he was 
 making his way over the hill, through the un 
 derbrush, around the cliff. Again and again 
 the fish ran out my line almost to the last turn. 
 
The Thrilling Moment 
 
 A dozen times he leaped from the water, shak- 
 ;ng 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 Ferdi 
 nand 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 en 
 tangle 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 swing 
 ing 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 ouana- 
 niche. Just at the right instant he made one 
 quick, steady swing of the arms, and the head 
 
54 The Thrilling Moment 
 
 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 common- 
 
The Thrilling Moment 55 
 
 est 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 
 
 I. PRELUDE ON AN OLD, FOOLISH MAXIM 
 
 "He praises a meditative life, and with evident sin 
 cerity but we feel that he liked nothing so well as good 
 talk." JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: Walton. 
 
 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 occu 
 pation, 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 
 56 
 
Taxability 57 
 
 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 suc 
 ceeded in persuading the fishes, in great multi 
 tudes, 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 
 
58 Taxability 
 
 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 con 
 ceived 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 
 
Talk ability 59 
 
 word. And this, it must be confessed, is an 
 assumption not yet fully verified. Experi 
 enced 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 en 
 closed in their skull, and have no outward open 
 ing. 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 inter 
 esting scientific experiment, has heard the con 
 versation 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 
 
60 Talkability 
 
 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 dis 
 charge of a gun, provided the flash is concealed. 
 Mr. Henry P. Wells, the author of The Ameri 
 can 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." 
 
Taxability 6 1 
 
 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 ad 
 vising anyone to choose, for companionship on 
 
62 
 
 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 " talk- 
 able " 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 moralise, 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 
 
Taxability 63 
 
 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 enter 
 prise. I know a man who can make a descrip 
 tion 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 taxability 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 pas 
 sive; 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 arch 
 angel " 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 
 
64 Talk ability 
 
 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 talkative 
 ness. That is a selfish, one-sided, inharmoni 
 ous 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 charac 
 ter and social standing of a new family that had 
 
Taxability 65 
 
 moved into his neighbourhood. Were they 
 " nice people," well-bred, intelligent, respect 
 able? "Well/ 1 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 rights and street-sweepings. 
 
 The kingdom of ornithology is divided into 
 two departments, real birds and English spar 
 rows. 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 
 3 
 
66 Taxability 
 
 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 (some 
 times) ; 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, over 
 whelms, and sometimes paralyses us by the dis 
 play 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 compari- 
 
Taxability 67 
 
 son with the after-dinner-speech-face. The flow 
 of table-talk is corked by the anxious concep 
 tion 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 " con 
 versational ability." 
 
 This has usually, to my mind, something set 
 and artificial about it, although in its most per 
 fect form the art almost succeeds in concealing 
 itself. But, at all events, " conversation " is 
 talk in evening dress, with perhaps a little pow 
 der and a touch of rouge. Tis 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. 
 
68 Taxability 
 
 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 pub 
 lication, 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, be 
 cause 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 pos 
 sibilities of variation. And if we go into it 
 with the right spirit, and play it for love, .with 
 out heavy stakes, the chances are that if w,e 
 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 com 
 pelled to choose, I should sooner, I think, con- 
 
Talk ability 69 
 
 sent to lose my sight than my hearing and 
 speech." The very aimlessness with which it 
 proceeds, the serene disregard of all considera 
 tions of profit and propriety with which it fol 
 lows its wandering course, and brings up any 
 where 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 Im- 
 manuel 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 philo 
 sophy. 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 " Civilisation 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 
 
70 Talkability 
 
 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, tis all 
 one ; there is yet grace and pertinence ; all there 
 is tented with a mature and constant judgment, 
 and mixed with goodness, freedom, gaiety, 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 in 
 tellectual. They are moral. Goodness of 
 heart, freedom of spirit, gaiety 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. 
 
Taxability 71 
 
 III. VARIATIONS ON A PLEASANT PHRASE 
 
 FROM MONTAIGNE 
 
 Montaigne has given as our text, " Goodness, 
 freedom, gaiety, 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 enlarge 
 ment. 
 
 Goodness is the first thing and the most need 
 ful. 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 com- 
 bativeness, 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 
 
72 Taxability 
 
 into convulsions. Macduff has a tendency to 
 regard a difference of opinion as a personal in 
 sult. 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 back, Dutch on one side, Eng 
 lish 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 ad 
 mired and respected a gallant adversary, and 
 urged him on, with quips and puns and 
 daring assaults and unqualified statements, to 
 
Talkabiltty 73 
 
 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 con 
 cluded there would be every prospect of what 
 an Irishman would call " an elegant wake." If 
 you stood up against him on one of his favour 
 ite 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 beat 
 ing 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 
 someone wince. There are such people in the 
 world, and sometimes their brilliancy tempts 
 us to forget their malignancy. But to have 
 3* 
 
74 Talkabiltty 
 
 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 everyone that he men 
 tioned, 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 
 
Taxability 75 
 
 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 de 
 pends, after all, upon the assurance of real good 
 ness in your companion. I do not mean a stiff 
 impeccability of conduct. Prudes and Phari 
 sees are poor comrades. I mean simply good 
 ness 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 
 
76 Talkability 
 
 painful ailment are as anxious about their utter 
 ance 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 band 
 box. 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-licence I 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 particu 
 lar not to commit himself, in pronunciation or 
 otherwise, and talks as if his remarks were be 
 ing 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. din; 
 
 In talk it is not correctness of grammar nor 
 
Taxability 77 
 
 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 delight 
 ful. 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, 
 
78 Taxability 
 
 within limits, the accent of a native region is 
 delightful. Tis 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 Vermonters 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 school 
 master 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 gaiety as the 
 third element 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 Mon 
 taigne meant. Certainly it is what he had. 
 
 Cheerfulness is the background of all good 
 talk* A sense of humour is a means of grace. 
 
Taxability 79 
 
 With it I have heard a pleasant soul make even 
 that most perilous of all subjects, the descrip 
 tion of a long illness, entertaining. The various 
 physicians moved through the recital as excel 
 lent 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 com 
 rade is better than a waterproof coat and a 
 foot-warmer. 
 
 I remember riding once with my lady Grey- 
 gown 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 Meta- 
 betchouan 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 (Jivide us. and 
 
80 Taxability 
 
 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 talk- 
 ability is most desirable, and talkativeness least 
 endurable, is a wife, 
 
 rn 
 
A Witt Strawberry 
 
 "Such is the story of the Boblit$; once spiritual, musi 
 cal, 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; 
 tvarning them to keep to those refined and intellectual 
 pursuits which raised him to so high a pitch of popu 
 larity 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 hem 
 lock forest on the edge of the Woodlings farm. 
 Among the evergreen branches overhead the 
 gaily-dressed warblers, little friends of the 
 forest, were flitting to and fro, lisping their 
 June songs of contented love : milder, slower, 
 lazier notes Jhan those in which they voiced the 
 amorous 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 
 81 
 
82 A Wild Strawberry 
 
 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 mossf bank at the foot of a tree, 
 filling my pipe after a frugal lunch, and think 
 ing how hard it would be to find in any quar 
 ter 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 Linnsea 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 rho 
 dodendron thicket. 
 
A Wild Strawberry 83 
 
 But how seldom we put a cup of pleasure to 
 our lips without a dash of bitters, a touch of 
 fault-finding. 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 plea 
 sant 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 deli 
 cately, 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 content 
 ment. 
 
 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 
 
84 A Wild Strawberry 
 
 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 crim 
 son ones of the forest. One, two, three; no 
 
A Wild Strawberry _ 85 
 
 more on that vine ; but each one as it touched my 
 lips was a drop of nectar and a crumb of am 
 brosia, a concentrated essence of all the pungent 
 sweetness of the wild-wood, sapid, penetrating, 
 and delicious. I tasted the odour of a hundre d 
 blossoms and the green shimmering of innumer 
 able 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. 
 
 /io) ert**xB sr! nv/vvf ibiriw o 
 
 Do you remember, in The Compleat Angler, 
 a remark which Izaak 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 
 
86 A Wild Strawberry 
 
 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 But 
 ler, and that he was an eminent physician, some 
 times called " the ^Esculapius 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 Cam 
 bridge 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 harm 
 less 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 
 
A Wild Strawberry 87 
 
 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 gun 
 powder, and failed; and the king tried to blow 
 out all the pipes in England with his Counter 
 blast against Tobacco ; but he failed too. Some 
 where about that time, early in the seventeenth 
 century, a very small event happened. A new 
 berry was brought over from Virginia, Fra- 
 graria 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 Para- 
 
88 A Wild Strawberry 
 
 dise was restored to its true place in the affec 
 tions 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 cheer 
 fulness ! The Virginian berry should have been 
 brought to England sooner, or you should have 
 lived longer, at least to a hundred years, so that 
 
A Wild Strawberry 89 
 
 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 wis 
 dom did not choose to surpass, human industry 
 has laboured to improve. It has grown im 
 mensely 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 devel 
 oped 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 
 
90 A Wild Strawberry 
 
 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 ceuvre in the 
 berry line. They have enlarged it and made 
 it more plentiful and more certain in its har 
 vest. But sweeter, more fragrant, more poig 
 nant in its flavour? No. The wild berry still 
 stands first in its subtle gusto. 
 
 Size is not the measure of excellence. Per 
 fection lies in quality, not in quantity. Con 
 centration 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 deli 
 cate and satisfying as the wild strawberry that 
 dropped into my mouth, under the hemlock tree, 
 beside the Swiftwater, 
 
A Wild Strawberry 91 
 
 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 bless 
 ings 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 Hud 
 son River, where they used to celebrate a festi 
 val 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 
 
92 A Wild, Strawberry 
 
 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 grey 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 anyone who is 
 prejudiced against games of chance can con 
 sistently 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 
 
A Wild Strawberry 93 
 
 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? " 
 
 *>H / // ii.fl-: jf l j //(. . .VllllUft i VKl JO i.[j> fin 
 
 There are strange freaks of fortune in the 
 finding of wild flowers, and curious coincidences 
 which make us feel as if someone 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 
 
94 A- Wild, Strawberry 
 
 Colonel Higginson describes the singular luck 
 that a friend of his enjoyed, year after year, in 
 finding the rare blossoms of the double rueane- 
 mone. 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, with 
 out 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 gar 
 den of Eden " to dress it and to keep it " has 
 an air of probability. How else shall we ac 
 count for the arboreal instincts that cling to his 
 posterity ? 
 
 There is a wilding strain in our blood that all 
 the civilisation in the world will not eradicate. 
 I never knew a real boy or } for that matter, 
 a girl worth knowing who would not rather 
 
_ A Wild Strawberry 95 
 
 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 in 
 significant 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 vener 
 able, 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 
 
96 A Wild, Strawberry 
 
 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 un 
 pleasant task of execution to menial hands, 
 while he goes out into the wild country to cap 
 ture 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 mon 
 ster), I would far rather take any number of 
 chances in my sport than have it domesticated 
 to the point of dullness. 
 
 The trim plantations of trees which are called 
 " forests " in certain parts of Europe scienti 
 fically 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 enchant 
 ment of the fragments of native woodland 
 which linger among the Adirondacks and the 
 White Mountains, or the vast, shaggy, sylvan 
 
A Wild Strawberry 97 
 
 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 dis 
 covery. There is no social directory in the wil 
 derness. " !fc. : 
 
 One side of our nature, no doubt, finds its 
 satisfaction in the regular, the proper, the con 
 ventional. 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 
 4 
 
98 A Wild Strawberry 
 
 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 approach 
 ing storm. It comes according to the pro 
 gramme. We admire the accuracy of the pre 
 diction, 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 be 
 tween, will be investigated and explained. We 
 shall live a perfectly ordered life, with no acci 
 dents, happy or unhappy. Everybody will act 
 according to rule, and there will be no dotted 
 
A Wild Strawberry 99 
 
 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 indi 
 vidual vagaries. Cultivated manners are admir 
 able, 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 culti 
 vation, is full of satisfaction. We anticipate it 
 in due season, and when it comes we fill our 
 mouths and are grateful. But pray, kind Pro- 
 
ioo A Wild. Strawberry 
 
 vidence, 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 wasn t interesting, and that the love that was inter 
 esting zvasn t always admirable. Love that happened to 
 a person like the measles or fits, and was really of no par 
 ticular 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 satis 
 factory 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 differ 
 ence 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 
 
 101 
 
IO2 Lovers and Landscape 
 
 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 
 demoralised Edens of the suburbs. In the 
 course of these vernal peregrinations and cir- 
 cumrotations, 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 
 amorous 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. 
 
Lovers and Landscape 103 
 
 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 tem 
 pered 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 desic 
 cated 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 un- 
 instructive 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 ami 
 able observations. In the month of April there 
 is hardly a clump of shrubbery in the Central 
 
1 04 Lovers and Landscape 
 
 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 accom 
 modation 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 conjunc 
 tion with the eruption of tops and marbles 
 among the small boys, and the purchase of fish 
 ing-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 rela 
 tion 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. 
 
Lovers and Landscape 105 
 
 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 an 
 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 
 1 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 compari 
 son the noblest passion that stirs their feathered 
 breasts. 
 
 Tis 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 pro 
 tect the young in the nest, in the varied struggles 
 for existence through the changing year, and in 
 4* 
 
Io6 Lovers and Landscape 
 
 the incredible heroisms of the annual migration. 
 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 onlooker. 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 medi 
 tation. 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 
 
Lovers and Landscape 107 
 
 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 gar 
 den 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 princi 
 pally for their convenience; and whatever por- 
 
io8 Lovers and Landscape 
 
 tion 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 to 
 gether 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 run 
 ning a rapid feather-white with foam, or float 
 ing down a long, quiet, elm-bowered river. Not 
 at all. His songs were full of sighs and yearn 
 ings, 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 
 
Lovers and Landscape 109 
 
 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-dit 
 ties ! And yet I suppose the singer chose these 
 songs, not from any malice aforethought, but 
 simply because songs of this kind are so abun 
 dant that it is next to impossible to find any 
 thing 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 diffi 
 culties 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? 
 
no Lovers and Landscape 
 
 Life is much too large to be expressed in the 
 terms of a single passion. Friendship, patriot 
 ism, parental tenderness, filial devotion, the ar 
 dour of adventure, the thirst for knowledge, the 
 ecstasy of religion, these all have their dwell 
 ing in the heart of man. They mould charac 
 ter. 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 mis 
 inform 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 Command 
 ment, 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, 
 
Lovers and Landscape ill 
 
 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 Do one 
 is a lovers story, but there is a blessed minimum 
 of spooning in it, and always enough of work 
 ing 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 
 Vadisf 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 pa 
 thetic, humorous, 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 
 Olc Stractcd are perfect stories of their kind, I 
 
112 Lovers and Landscape 
 
 would not barter The Jungle Books for a hun 
 dred 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 inter 
 preter) 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 hope 
 lessly askew unless these two needles find each 
 other in the haystack ? You believe it for your 
 self, perhaps; but do you believe it for Tom 
 Johnson? You remember what a terrific dis 
 turbance he made in the summer of 189-, at 
 Bar Harbour, 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 
 
Lovers and Landscape 113 
 
 not married Ellinor, these two young lives 
 would have been a total wreck? 
 
 Adam Smith, in his book on The Moral Sen 
 timents, goes so far as to say that " love is not 
 interesting to the observer because it is an affec 
 tion 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 melan 
 choly and frigid prediction of Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson, to the effect that they would some day 
 discover " that all which at first drew them to 
 gether those once sacred features, that magical 
 play of charm was deciduous." 
 
 Deciduous, indeed? Cold, unpleasant, botani 
 cal 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 
 
114 Lovers and Landscape 
 
 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 il 
 lustrative of heaven. 
 
 But even in the making of such a match as 
 this, the various stages of attraction, infatua 
 tion, and appropriation, should not be dis 
 played 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 to 
 gether 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 
 
Lovers and Landscape 115 
 
 Jupiter and To 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 reasons of scepticism 
 are transient. They are connected with a tor 
 pid 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 
 
Ii6 Lovers and Landscape 
 
 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, wad 
 ing 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 we in her behaviour" said he, " is its 
 thoroughness. Woman seldom does things by halves, but 
 often by doubles." SOLOMON SINGLEWITZ: The Life of 
 Adam. 
 
 EEKMAN 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 com 
 pare notes of our wanderings on various streams 
 and make up the fish-stories for the year, Beek- 
 man was almost always " high hook." We ex 
 pected, 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 
 117 
 
n8 A Fatal Success 
 
 about it before anyone 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 suc 
 ceed, 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 Beek- 
 man was a masterful man, Cornelia was cer 
 tainly 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 everyone 
 with a cheque for a thousand dollars. Her 
 tastes were accepted as judgments, and her pre 
 ferences had the force of laws. Wherever she 
 wanted to go in the summer-time, there the fin 
 ger 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 wed- 
 
A Fatal Success 119 
 
 ding that Beekman admitted to a few of his 
 ancient Petrine cronies, in moments of confi 
 dence (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 
 doesn t care for fishing. She says it s stupid, 
 can t see why anyone 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 Adiron- 
 dacks, 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 
 
I2O A Fatal Success 
 
 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 un 
 favourable opinion of fishing as an amusement 
 and of Meacham River as a resort. 
 
 " The nice people don t come to the Adiron- 
 dacks 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 Moose- 
 head 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-grey 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 
 
A Fatal Success 121 
 
 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 re 
 ports 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 evi 
 dences 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 particu- 
 
122 A Fatal Success 
 
 larity 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 Bos 
 ton, 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 din 
 ner of the Petrine Club, which he always 
 attended as a graduate member. " A real fisher 
 man 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 * 
 
A Fatal Success 123 
 
 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 re 
 gard 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 & 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 oxidised 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 Septem 
 ber 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 ang 
 ling may be seen in its incurable stage. There is a 
 
124 A Fatal Success 
 
 cosy little inn, called a camp, at the foot of a 
 big lake. In front of the inn is a huge dam of 
 grey 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 trail 
 ing 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 com 
 pany on an average day, but the size is some 
 times enormous, nothing under three pounds 
 is counted, and they pervade thought and con 
 versation 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. 
 
A Fatal Success 125 
 
 " 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 construc 
 tion of the house imposes upon all confidential 
 communications in the bedrooms, but with reso 
 lution 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 pro 
 nounced her safe. 
 
 " Of course," he said patronisingly, " you 
 haven t 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. 
 
126 A Fatal Success 
 
 We will try the pool to-night, 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 " Dra 
 gon " ; 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 visi 
 ble through the gloom, the furtive fisherman, 
 Parsons, had anchored his boat. No noise 
 
A Fatal Success 127 
 
 ever came from that craft. If he wished to 
 change his position, he did not pull up the an 
 chor 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," whis 
 pered Beekman, " what a secretive old Fortuna- 
 tus 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, Beek- 
 
128 A Fatal Success 
 
 man reeled up his line, and remarked with firm 
 ness that the holy Sabbath day was almost at 
 hand and they ought to go in. 
 
 " Not till I ve landed this trout," said Cor 
 nelia. 
 
 " What ? A trout ! Have you got one ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; I ve had him on for at least fif 
 teen 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 fourteeen ounces, that 
 wa? the weight. Everybody was amazed. It was 
 the " best fish "of the year. Cornelia showed 
 no sign of exultation, until just as John was 
 
A Fatal Success 129 
 
 carrying the trout to the ice-house. Then she 
 flashed out : 
 
 " Quite a fair imitation, Mr. McTurk isn t 
 it?" 
 
 Now McTurk s best record for the last fif 
 teen 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 
 5 
 
130 A Fatal Success 
 
 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 man 
 age the boat and the net and the lantern for her, 
 she engaged a trustworthy guide to take Beek 
 man 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 Pey- 
 ster 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. 
 
 Someone 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." 
 
A Fatal Success 131 
 
 " 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 Labra 
 dor. The custom of drawing lots every night 
 for the water that each member was to angle 
 over the next day, seemed to be especially de 
 signed 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 edi 
 torial 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 
 
132 A Fatal Success 
 
 trout in the early spring, and the Labrador sal 
 mon 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 plea 
 sant 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 
 
A Fatal Success 133 
 
 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 Pey- 
 ster." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," he answered, " haven 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 civilised 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 th small 
 number of gentlemen as an American writer says, who 
 are at leisure to give their time to it. " WILLIAM AX- 
 DREW CHATTO: The Angler s Souvenir (London, 1835). 
 
 HH HAT wise man and accomplished scholar, 
 A 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. 
 134 
 
Fishing in Books 135 
 
 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 incor 
 rigible 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 em- 
 
136 Fishing in Books 
 
 barrassing. 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 dia 
 mond 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 
 
Fishing in Books 137 
 
 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 direc 
 tion, 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 des 
 perately toward the third flag and pull in the 
 5* 
 
138 Fishing in Books 
 
 only fish that is left, probably the smallest of 
 them all! 
 
 A surplus of opportunities does not ensure 
 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-con- 
 versation of that ingenious woodsman, Martin 
 Moody, Esquire, of Big Tupper Lake. Twas 
 a blame cold day," he said, " and the lines friz 
 up stifler n a fence-wire, jus as fast as I pulled 
 em in, and my fingers got so dum frosted I 
 couldn 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, twas a big lot, I low, but then 
 twas a cold day!! I jus stacked em up solid, 
 like cord wood." 
 
 Let us now leave this frigid subject! Iced 
 
Fishing in Books 139 
 
 fishing is but a chilling and unsatisfactory imi 
 tation of real sport. The angler will soon turn 
 from it with satiety, and seek a better consola 
 tion for the winter of his discontent in the en 
 tertainment 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 Bar 
 ker, to produce a little " discourse of fish and 
 fishing " which should serve as a useful manual 
 for quiet persons inclined to follow the contem 
 plative 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 
 
140 Fishing in Books 
 
 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, cal 
 culated for the Meridian of Scotland, &c., 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 
 
Fishing in Books 141 
 
 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 partisan pre 
 judice had something to do with the dislike. 
 Hunt was a radical in politics and religion. 
 Moreover there was a feline strain in his charac 
 ter, 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 Denny s, who be 
 trayed 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 ^Elian, 
 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 
 
14.2 Fishing in Books 
 
 adornment of his discourse, and did not scorn 
 to make use of what may be called live quotes 
 tions, 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 Bur 
 roughs. 
 
 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, appetising things like 
 the " syllabub of new verjuice in a new-made 
 haycock " which the milk woman 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 dullness, and 
 charms us into harmony with 
 
Fishing in Books 143 
 
 " 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 ang 
 ling is extensive, as anyone 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 Risti- 
 gouche. 
 
 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 informa- 
 
144 Fishing in Books 
 
 tion. There is a good deal of juicy reading 
 in it. 
 
 BOOKS about angling should be divided (ac 
 cording 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 manu 
 facture 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 paint 
 ing trout-rods eighteen feet long, and their pain 
 ful description of " oyntments " made of 
 nettlejuice, fish-hawk oil, camphor, cat s fat, or 
 assafcedita (supposed to allure the fish), are alto 
 gether behind the age. Many of the flies de 
 scribed by Charles Cotton and Thomas Barker 
 seem to have gone out of style among the trout. 
 Perhaps familiarity has bred contempt. Genera- 
 
Fishing in Books 145 
 
 tion 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 ship 
 wrecked sailors in Virgil his ^Eneid, 
 
 " 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, 
 
146 Fishing in Books 
 
 stolen to make a water-supply 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 realise the hopes kindled by an 
 Angler s Guide written in the early sixties. It 
 was like looking for tall clocks in the farm 
 houses 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. 
 
 Tis strange and sad, how many regions there 
 are where " the fishing was wonderful forty 
 years ago " ! 
 
 THE second class of angling books the liter 
 ature 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 adven 
 ture, 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 
 
Fishing in Books 147 
 
 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 tho 
 roughly 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 Uni 
 versity 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 
 
148 Fishing in Books 
 
 Royal of Scotland. His Recreations of Christ 
 opher 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 Ima 
 ginative. But it must belaid, by way of warn 
 ing 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 
 
Fishing in Books 149 
 
 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 de 
 scribe fishing adventures in foreign parts. Ram 
 bles with a Fishing-Rod, by E. S. Roscoe, 
 tells of happy days in the Salzkammergut and 
 
150 Fishing in Books 
 
 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 him 
 self, 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 chap 
 ter of his delightful Angling Sketches (without 
 
Fishing in Books 151 
 
 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 R. D. 
 Blackmore, 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 plea 
 sure in reading the appendix of The American 
 Angler s Book, by Thaddeus Norris ; or the dis 
 cursive 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 
 
152 Fishing in Books 
 
 of the Black Bass ; or the admirable digressions 
 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 pro 
 found knowledge of the art of angling into a 
 manual of technical instruction ; but he has writ 
 ten of the delights of the sport in Owl Creek 
 Letters, and in / 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 
 
Fishing in Books 153 
 
 and Romans, tells a capital fish-story of the man 
 ner 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, An 
 tony 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 commis 
 sion, 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 be 
 hind 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 hali 
 but or Hades ! " 
 
154 Fishing in Books 
 
 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 vera 
 cious 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 re 
 lating 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 far 
 thing for this meridian, I learned this by mere 
 
Fishing in Books 155 
 
 accident, after I had waited four mortal hours. 
 I shall never forget an impudent urchin, a cow 
 herd, about twelve years old, without either 
 brogue or bonnet, barelegged, with a very in 
 different pair of breeches, how the villain 
 grinned in scorn at my landing-net, my plummet, 
 and the gorgeous jury of flies which I had as 
 sembled to destroy all the fish in the river. I 
 was induced at last to lend the rod to the sneer 
 ing 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 bare 
 footed country-boy, in fiction. 
 
 Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, in that valuable 
 but over-capitalised book, My Novel, makes use 
 of Fishing for Allegorical Purposes. The epi 
 sode 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 mea 
 dow-brook m Alice Lorraine. And who that 
 
156 Fishing in Books 
 
 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 mea 
 dow adorned with flowers, at the top of the 
 brook ? 
 
 I made a little journey into the Doone Coun 
 try 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 sup 
 pose 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 foun 
 tain of love, which John Ridd discovered beside 
 the Bagworthy River, and I, on the willow- 
 shaded banks of the Patapso, where the Balti 
 more 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 
 
Fishing in Books 157 
 
 alone we taste the undiminished fullness of im 
 mortal 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 ram 
 bling dissertation to an end. 
 
 "Our first essay," says he, "was along a moun 
 tain 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 rivu 
 lets. It was one of those wild streams that 
 lavish, among our romantic solitudes, unheeded 
 
itj8 Fishing in Books 
 
 beauties enough to fill the sketch-book of a hun 
 ter 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 dia 
 mond drops. Sometimes it would brawl and 
 fret along a ravine in the matted shade of a 
 forest, rilling it with murmurs; and, after this 
 termagant career, would steal forth into open 
 day, with the most placid, demure face imagin 
 able; 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 curtseying, 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 oc 
 casional tinkling of a bell from the lazy cattle 
 among the clover, or the sound of a woodcut 
 ter 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 
 
Fishing in Books 159 
 
 hour before I had completely satisfied the sen 
 timent, and convinced myself of the truth of 
 Izaak Walton s opinion, that angling is some 
 thing 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, satis 
 fied 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 
 160 
 
A Norwegian Honeymoon 161 
 
 self-evident proposition that it ought to be the 
 happiest time in married life. 
 
 " It is perfectly ridiculous," said my lady 
 Grey gown, " 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 some 
 times the more acquaintance, the less love ! Be 
 sides, 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 
 6 
 
1 62 A Norwegian Honeymoon 
 
 would be ! What would there be to look for 
 ward 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. Be 
 sides, 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 De 
 cember, 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 frag- 
 
A Norwegian Honeymoon 163 
 
 rant 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 Randsf jord 
 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 rail 
 way officials. 
 
164 A Norwegian Honeymoon 
 
 What a room that was in the inn at Rands- 
 fjord 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 sys 
 tem 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 main 
 tains 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 
 
A Norwegian Honeymoon 165 
 
 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 per 
 mutations 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 seden 
 tary ease, 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 com 
 fortable 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 
 
1 66 A Norwegian Honeymoon 
 
 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 strax 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 ex 
 periment in witchcraft. We should not have 
 been at all surprised, I must confess, if our pre- 
 
A Norwegian Honeymoon 167 
 
 liminary incantation had brought forth a cow 
 or a basket of eggs. 
 
 But the good people seemed to divine our in 
 tentions ; 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 Grey- 
 gown congratulated me on the prudence which 
 had provided that one side of that receptacle 
 should be of an inflexible stiffness, quite in 
 capable 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 ancl 
 
1 68 A Norwegian Honeymoon 
 
 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 even 
 ing. The sun was down, but the mystical 
 radiance of the northern twilight illumined the 
 sky. The dark fir-woods spread around us, 
 and their odorous 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 Val- 
 ders, with snow-touched mountains on the hori 
 zon, 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 
 
A Norwegian Honeymoon 169 
 
 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 Fry- 
 denlund, Greygown sprang out, with a little sigh 
 of regret. 
 
 " Is it last night," she cried, " or to-morrow 
 morning ? I haven t the least idea what time it 
 is; it seems as if we had been travelling in eter 
 nity." 
 
 " 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 
 6* 
 
170 A Norwegian Honeymoon 
 
 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 com 
 mands the amazing panorama of the Naerodal. 
 Another day we would lodge in a plain farm 
 house like the station at Nedre Vasenden, where 
 eggs and fish were the staples of diet, and the 
 farmer s daughter wore the picturesque peasant s 
 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 hun 
 dred 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 Bur- 
 gund; and the delightful, showery town of Ber 
 gen; and the gloomy cliffs of the Geiranger- 
 Fjord laced with filmy cataracts; and the be 
 witched crags of the Romsdal; and the wide, 
 desolate landscape of Jerkin; and a hundred 
 
A Norwegian Honeymoon 171 
 
 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 Trond- 
 hjem. My lady Greygown 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. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Here is the bridge over the Naeselv at Fager- 
 naes. 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 Greygown from the 
 
172 A Norwegian Honeymoon 
 
 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 foot 
 hold, 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 cur 
 rent, 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. 
 
 Greygown 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." " 
 wro vjirf R *i or>f[T .tefi*> : n\\ <o ?.;c> ">{> of <nn- 
 
 The station at Skogstad is a solitary farm 
 house lying far up on the bare hillside, with its 
 barns and out-buildings grouped around a cen 
 tral courtyard, like a rude fortress. The river 
 travels along the valley below, now wrestling 
 
A Norwegian Honeymoon 173 
 
 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 Greygown dare to drive 
 on alone to the gate of the fortress, and blow 
 upon the long horn which doubtless hangs be 
 side it, and demand admittance and a lodging, 
 " in the name of the great Jehovah and the Con 
 tinental 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 Norwe 
 gian? 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 flow 
 ing 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 
 
174 ^ Norwegian Honeymoon 
 
 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 Greygown as if I could discern her white 
 banner of crochet- work floating from the battle 
 ments. 
 
 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 fin- 
 
A Norwegian Honeymoon 175 
 
 gers 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 Ind- 
 vik 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., 
 
176 A Norwegian Honeymoon 
 
 At the head of the lake we find ourselves in 
 an enormous amphitheatre of mountains. Gla 
 ciers 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, 
 
A Norwegian Honeymoon 177 
 
 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 
 grey 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 Is 
 land," 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 f ths species which you can see but 
 
178 A Norwegian Honeymoon 
 
 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 per 
 suading any of them to take the fly. Then they 
 rose, for a couple of hours, with amiable perver 
 sity. 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 wait 
 ing 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 forgot thee, hospitable Stuefloten, 
 dearest to our memory of all the rustic stations 
 
A Norwegian Honeymoon 179 
 
 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 be 
 ginning 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. 
 
 About Stuefloten the Rauma lingers and 
 meanders through a smoother and more open 
 
180 A Norwegian Honeymoon 
 
 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 in 
 veterate fisherman, whose footmarks we saw 
 ahead of us on the stream all through an after 
 noon. 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 
 
A Norwegian Honeymoon 181 
 
 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 cur 
 rent. 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 com 
 plete my tale of trout before dark. 
 
 And when the fishing is over, there is Grey- 
 gown with the wagon, waiting at the appointed 
 place under the trees, beside the road. The 
 sturdy white pony trots gaily 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 mar 
 vellous tales, in his broken English, of the fish 
 ing in a certain lake among the mountains, and 
 of the reindeer-shooting on the f jeld 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 
 
1 82 A Norwegian Honeymoon 
 
 the hundred places that we are vaguely planning 
 to revisit. For, though we did not see the mid 
 night 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. 
 
 T T was the little lad that asked the question ; 
 J- and the answer also, as you will see, was 
 mainly his. 
 
 We had been keeping Sunday afternoon to 
 gether 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 
 183 
 
184 Who Owns the Mountains? 
 
 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 con 
 soling landscape. The heart of the earth seemed 
 to taste a repose more perfect than that of com 
 mon days. A hermit-thrush, far up the vale, 
 sang his vesper hymn ; while the swallows, seek 
 ing 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 mea 
 dows, perhaps the blue curls of smoke rising 
 lazily from the farmhouse chimneys, or the 
 family groups sitting under the maple-trees be- 
 
Who Owns the Mountains? 185 
 
 fore 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 Moun 
 tain extended itself back into the untrodden wil 
 derness. Mount Garfield lifted a clear-cut 
 pyramid through the translucent air. The huge 
 
1 86 Who Owns the Mountains? 
 
 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 
 
Who Owns the Mountains? 187 
 
 which is truly personal, that which we take into 
 our inner life and make our own for ever, 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, congratu 
 lating 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 cus 
 todian. 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 inspira 
 tion. 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. 
 
1 88 Who Owns the Mountains? 
 
 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 Biicherfreund 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 pos 
 sible) 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 
 
Who Owns the Mountains? 189 
 
 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 civilisation. 
 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 
 relieve 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 glean 
 ing 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 
 
190 Who Owns the Mountains ? 
 
 goldenrod, shining in the August sunlight, an 
 unearned increment of delight. 
 
 We measure success by accumulation. The 
 measure is false. The true measure is apprecia 
 tion. 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 un 
 folding 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 in 
 herit. 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 bustling 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 
 191 
 
192 A Lazy, Idle Brook 
 
 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 reser 
 voirs out of which great steam-engines pump the 
 water to quench the thirst of Brooklyn. Even 
 the smaller streams tarry long enough in their 
 
A Lazy, Idle Brook 193 
 
 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 reser 
 voir, 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 grey, stood like an improvised ruin 
 among the pine-trees beside the pond. 
 
 It was through this unharvested ice-pond, this 
 7 
 
194 A L az y, Idle Brook 
 
 fallow field of water, that my lady Greygown 
 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 the sail-boat, 
 by name " The Patience/ making voyages 
 of exploration into watery corners and by 
 ways. 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, bor- 
 
A Lazy, Idle Brook 195 
 
 dered with flags and rushes and feathery mea 
 dow 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 some 
 what 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 live 
 lier 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 
 
196 A Lazy, Idle Brook 
 
 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 hun 
 dred feet from end to end, with the brook danc 
 ing 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 wild- 
 wood 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 Greygown, 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 under 
 brush that I have ever encountered. Alders and 
 
A Lazy, Idle Brook 197 
 
 swamp maples and pussy-willows and grey 
 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 pas 
 sage. 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 tropi 
 cal 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 sur 
 prise to hear the bark of a racoon, or see the 
 eyes of a wildcat gleaming through the leaves. 
 
198 A Lazy, Idle Brook 
 
 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 my 
 self 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 feel 
 ing 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 dis 
 reputable. 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 disenchant 
 ment, to find that civilisation, with all its ab 
 surdities and conventionalities, was so threaten 
 ingly 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 Greygown was placidly read 
 ing. Reading, I say, though her book was 
 
A Lazy, Idle Brook 199 
 
 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 disagree 
 able? 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. 
 
200 A Lazy, Idle Brook 
 
 Why should we neglect our opportunities, 
 which were also our real duties? The nervous 
 disease of civilisation 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 civilised life and midway between 
 two flourishing summer resorts, a brook with 
 out 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 order 
 ing 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 Greygown with her 
 
 " most silver How 
 Of subtle-paced counsel in distress. 1 
 
A Lazy, Idle Brook 201 
 
 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 vaca 
 tions, the faithful encourager of indolence. 
 
 Indolence in the proper sense of the word, 
 you understand. The meaning which is com 
 monly 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 en 
 couraged us. 
 
 Tis an age in which such encouragement is 
 greatly needed. We have fallen so much into 
 
 7* 
 
202 A Lazy, Idle Brook 
 
 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 agi 
 tate 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 Lan 
 guages. 
 
 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, 
 
A Lazy, Idle Brook 203 
 
 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 Mar 
 quis du Paty de 1 Huitre may espouse the daugh 
 ter and heiress of the Honourable James Bulger 
 with all imaginable pomp, if he will, fa ne 
 m intrigue point du tout. I would rather 
 stretch myself out on the grass and watch yon 
 der 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 
 
204 A Lazy, Idle Brook 
 
 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 tender 
 ness comes into play. The young birds, all 
 ignorant of the passing danger, but always con 
 scious 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. 
 
 v / -i 
 
 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 some 
 thing to say to us, and do we not understand it 
 best when we have a peaceful heart and free 
 from dolour? That is what in-dolence means, 
 and there are no better teachers of it than the 
 light-hearted birds and untoiling flowers, com 
 mended by the wisest of all masters to our con 
 sideration; nor can we find a more pleasant 
 
A Lazy, Idle Brook 205 
 
 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 ar 
 rangement 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 satis 
 faction of the joy of our callers when they dis 
 covered 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 
 arrow-heads and cardinal-flowers. Or suppose 
 
206 A Lazy, Idle Brook 
 
 that I was very unwisely and reluctantly labour 
 ing at some serious piece of literary work, pro 
 mised 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 fisher 
 man had forgotten to leave any fish at our cot 
 tage that morning. Should my innocent babes 
 and my devoted wife be left to perish of starva 
 tion while I continued my poetical comparison 
 of the two Williams, Shakespeare 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 fish- 
 less 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 
 
A Lazy, Idle Brook 207 
 
 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 dis 
 cover 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? * 
 
208 A Lazy, Idle Brook 
 
 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 
 
A Lazy, Idle Brook 209 
 
 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 em 
 bedded in a sunken log, or hopelessly entwined 
 among the boughs overhead. But when we 
 came out at the bridge, very wet and dishevelled, 
 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 com 
 mitted 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 cor 
 ners 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 feather 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 
 
2io A Lazy, Idle Brook 
 
 produced no result, and it seemed as if the dainty 
 style of angling were destined to prove less pro 
 fitable 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 
 cut again, a foot farther up the stream and a 
 
A Lazy, Idle Brook 211 
 
 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 re 
 treat. 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 
 
212 A Lazy, Idle Brook 
 
 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 after 
 noon. 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 ang 
 lers sitting on a bridge over another stream, and 
 fishing for trout with worms and large expecta 
 tions, 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 part 
 ner of my life s joy 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 photo- 
 
A Lazy, Idle Brook 213 
 
 graphs. 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 
 Greygown and little Teddy were my compan 
 ions. 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. Greygown 
 and Teddy managed the boat and the landing-net 
 with consummate skill. We landed no fewer 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 
 
214 -A Lazy, Idle Brook 
 
 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 civilised, no exist 
 ence so humdrum, that there is not room enough 
 in it somewhere for a lazy, idle brook, an en- 
 courager 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 
 tzvice 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 squir 
 rels 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 mas 
 ters 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 
 215 
 
216 The Open Fire 
 
 of the fire touches them or even when its smell 
 comes clearly to their most delicate sense, they 
 recognise 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 follow 
 ing spring. The woodchuck s house has two or 
 three doors; and the squirrel s dwelling is pro 
 vided with a good bed and a convenient store 
 house 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 shel 
 ter for sleep. But there is one thing lacking in 
 all these various dwellings, a fireplace. 
 
The Open Fire 217 
 
 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-humanised, have begun 
 to love the fire. I suppose that a cat seldom 
 comes so near to feeling a true sense of affec 
 tion as when she has finished her saucer of 
 bread and milk, and stretched herself luxuri 
 ously 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 mir 
 acle, 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 
 
218 The Open Fire 
 
 toiling slave. A stove is a cage for a tame bird. 
 Even a broad hearthstone and a pair of glitter 
 ing 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 everyone 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 con 
 flagration 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, approach 
 able, serviceable, docile, is a work of intelli 
 gence. If, perhaps, you have to do it in the 
 
The Open Fire 219 
 
 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 spurts and sputters for an instant, 
 and then goes out. Or perhaps there is a mo 
 ment of stillness; the match flares up bravely; 
 the nearest twigs catch fire, crackling and spark 
 ling; 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 
 
220 The Open Fire 
 
 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 differ 
 ence 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 
 
The Open Fire 221 
 
 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, slant 
 ing 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. 
 
222 The Open 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, et 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 
 
The Open Fire 223 
 
 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 
 pyjamas, and wake up with a shiver. 
 
 " Hold, Ferdinand, Frangois! " you call out 
 from your bed, pulling the blankets over your 
 ears ; " Ramanchez le feu, s il vous plait. C est 
 un freite de Men." 
 
 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. 
 
224 The Open Fire 
 
 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 fire 
 place 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 luke-warm one minute and 
 red-hot the next is the abomination of .desola 
 tion. If you want black toast, have it made be 
 fore 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 with 
 out 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 sea 
 sons when it seems to come in better than famil- 
 
The Open Fire 225 
 
 iarity 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 straw 
 berries, and serving green peas cold for dessert. 
 One day a can of mullagatawny soup and a can 
 of apricots were handed out to him simultane 
 ously and without explanations. Edouard 
 solved the problem by opening both cans and 
 cooking them together. We had a new soup 
 that day, mullagatawny aux abricots. It was 
 8 
 
226 The Open Fire 
 
 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 
 1 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 
 
The Open Fire 227 
 
 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 ex 
 press 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 
 
228 The Open Fire 
 
 and green moss blazes with a furious heat. You 
 hastily gather handfuls of seemingly incombus 
 tible 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 en 
 courage the black-flies ; and bright light to attract 
 and cheer the mosquitoes. Your effort is a bril 
 liant 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 
 
The Open Fire 229 
 
 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 ang 
 ler 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, fif 
 teen 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 
 
230 The Open Fire 
 
 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 
 
The Open Fire 231 
 
 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 sum 
 mit 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, 
 
232 The Open Fire 
 
 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-grey fly with a barbed tail darts 
 out across the pool, swings around with the cur 
 rent, 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 sud 
 denly 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 ques 
 tion. 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 
 
The Open Fire 233 
 
 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 
 8* 
 
234 The Open Fire 
 
 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 tre 
 mendous 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 beau 
 tiful 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 
 
The Open Fire 235 
 
 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 tre 
 mendous rush, bumps his nose against a jutting 
 rock, and flops back into the pool. Now conies 
 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 bend 
 ing 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 
 
236 The Open Fire 
 
 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 fom 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 friend 
 ship-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 
 
The Open Fire 237 
 
 beside the stream, for 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. 
 
 i 
 
 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 
 
238 The Open Fire 
 
 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 pur 
 pose 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 
 
The Open Fire 239 
 
 some faintly-marked trail ; following it blindly 
 through the forest, not knowing how far you 
 have to go; hearing the voice of waters sound 
 ing through the woodland ; leaving the path im 
 patiently and striking straight across the under 
 brush; 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 in 
 vites 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 
 
240 The Open Fire 
 
 in the sheltered corners under the bushes. From 
 scene to scene you follow on, delighted and ex 
 pectant, 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. 
 
The Open Fire 241 
 
 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 twi 
 light with my lady Greygown 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 are pansies, they are 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 mid-stream, 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. 
 
242 The Open Fire 
 
 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 friend 
 ship 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 
 bank, 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 for ever. 
 
 There is a mossy knoll beneath a great butter 
 nut-tree on the Swiftwater where such a fire 
 place 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 per 
 haps a dozen trout in it; two little lads in grey 
 corduroys running down the path through the 
 woods to meet him, one carrying a frying-pan 
 
The Open Fire 243 
 
 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 appetising 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 birds 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 bishops -caps 
 and the wild anemones are sprinkled over the 
 
244 The Open Fire 
 
 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 Swift- 
 water. 
 
 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 fol 
 low 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 remem 
 brance ! And close beside it I see a little heart s- 
 ease. 
 
A Slumber Song 
 
 FOR THE FISHERMAN S CHILD 
 
 URL your sail, my little boatie ; 
 A 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 ! 
 245 
 
246 A Slumber Song 
 
 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. 
 
Index 
 
 ADAM : his early education, 
 
 94 ; his opinion of woman, 
 
 117 
 
 " Afghan s Knife, The," 177 
 Algebra: the equation of 
 
 life, 19 
 
 "Alice Lorraine," 155 
 " Along New England 
 
 Roads," 152 
 
 Altars of remembrance, 242 
 " Amateur Angler s Days in 
 
 Dove Dale, An," 45, 150 
 " American Angler s Book, 
 
 The," 151 
 " American Salmon Angler, 
 
 The," 152 
 " Among New England 
 
 Hills," 152 
 " Angler, The Compleat," 
 
 see Walton, Izaak 
 Angler: the education of 
 
 an, 117. 
 
 " Angler s Guide, The," 146 
 Angling : an affair of luck, 
 
 12; a means of escape 
 
 from t&dium vita, 20 ; 
 
 books about, classified, 
 
 144, .145 
 " Angling Reminiscences " 
 
 of Thomaj Tod Stoddart, 
 
 147 
 " Angling Sketches," by 
 
 Andrew Lang, 150 
 
 Antony: deceived by Cleo 
 patra, 153 
 
 Arden, the Forest of : direc 
 tion for reaching, 21 
 
 Ascension Day : good for 
 fishing, 13 
 
 Bald Mountain, 186 
 
 Banquets : two delectable 
 ones, 27, 28 
 
 Baptists, Seventh-Day : an 
 inducement to join them, 
 13 
 
 Barber : the philosophic 
 conduct of a, 21 
 
 Barker, Thomas, 144 
 
 Bartlett, Mr. John; pisca 
 torial collection of, 143 
 
 Bergen: town of, 170 
 
 Berries, 84; Izaak Walton 
 quoted on, 85 
 
 Bethune, Rev. Dr. George 
 W., an editor of Walton, 
 .151 
 
 Birds : their unexpected 
 ness, 30; their courage, 
 33> 203 5 their manner of 
 singing, 64-66, 81 
 
 Birds named : 
 
 Blue jay, 197 
 Boblink, 81 
 Brown thrush, 66 
 Catbird, 104, 197 
 
 247 
 
248 
 
 Index 
 
 Birds named: 
 
 Crow, 203 
 
 Dove, 102, 103 
 
 English sparrow not a 
 bird, 65, 106 
 
 Grosbeak, rose-breasted, 
 66 
 
 Hooded warbler, 30 
 
 Kingbird, 203 
 
 Mockingbird, 66 
 
 Oriole, 66 
 
 Parrot, 64 
 
 Partridge, 32 
 
 Pigeon-hawk, 183 
 
 Redstart, 31 
 
 Robin, 66 
 
 Rose-breasted grosbeak, 
 66 
 
 Spotted sandpiper, 33 
 
 Swallow, 184 
 
 Thrush, 184 
 
 Veery, 66 
 
 Vireos, 244 
 
 Water-thrush, 244 
 
 White-throat, 66 
 
 Wood thrush, 66 
 
 Wren, 66 
 
 Yellow-throat, 184, 244 
 
 Yellow warblersi, 104 
 Black, William: his know 
 ledge of angling, 157 
 Blackmore, R. D., 151 ; fish 
 ing described by, 155 
 " Book of the Black Bass," 
 
 I5i 
 
 Borgund: church at, 170 
 Boyle, Hon. Robert, 149 
 Brogue: as an ornament of 
 
 speech, 77 
 
 Brook: a lazy, idle, 194; in 
 the bower, 195; con 
 sidered as a sign, 199; the 
 
 lesson of a, 204; fishing 
 in a, 208 
 
 Browsing: a diversion for 
 anglers, 83 
 
 Burroughs, John, 142 
 
 Butler, Dr. William: his 
 pleasant saying about the 
 strawberry, 85; his cha 
 racter as a physician and 
 a philosopher, 86-87 
 
 " By Meadow and Stream," 
 150 
 
 Byron, Lord : a detractor of 
 Walton, 140 
 
 Camp-fire: the art of kind 
 ling a, 220 
 
 Camping: pleasures of, 24 
 Cannon Mountain, 186 
 " Chalk-Stream Studies," 
 
 148 
 Chance : a good word with 
 
 a bad reputation, 18 
 Chatto, William Andrew, 
 
 134, 151 
 Cheerfulness: a virtue in 
 
 good talk, 78 
 
 Christian character : illus 
 trated, 39 
 Civilisation : a nervous 
 
 disease, 200 
 Cleopatra, 153 
 " Cloister and the Hearth, 
 
 The," in 
 
 Colquhoun, John, 147 
 Conversation : compared 
 
 with talk, 21 
 Cook : a good, 225 
 Cooking-fire : the art of 
 
 kindling a, 223 
 Cotton, Charles, 58, 144 
 Crinkle-root, 83 
 
Index 
 
 249 
 
 " Crocker s Hole," 151 
 Crosby, Chancellor 
 
 Howard : a good talker, 
 
 72 
 
 Davy, Sir Humphry : 
 slighted by Christopher 
 North, 148 
 
 " Days in Clover," 150 
 
 Days : Superstitions about 
 them, 12-13 
 
 Dennys, John: "The Se 
 crets of Angling," quoted, 
 141 
 
 De Peyster, Mr. and Mrs.: 
 the success of, in the art 
 of the angler, 117 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas, 144 
 
 Deucaliop : the first artistic 
 fisherman, n 
 
 Dickinson, Emily : quoted, 
 93 
 
 Drivstuen, 178 
 
 Eagle Cliff, 186 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 87 
 Elk: the Tarn of the, 176 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo : 
 
 quoted, 113 
 English sparrows : beasts, 
 
 not birds, 65 
 
 " Essays Critical and Ima 
 ginative " of Christopher 
 North, 148 
 Etnadal, 167 
 " Ettrick Shepherd," the, 58 
 
 Fagornaes, 171 
 
 Faleide, 175 
 
 Fawkes, Guy, 87 
 
 Fire: fear of animals of, 
 
 215; kindling a fire in 
 the woods, 218; the camp- 
 fire, 220; the cooking- 
 fire, 223 ; the smudge-fire, 
 226; the little friendship- 
 fire, 235 
 
 Fish : their waywardness, 
 50, 213 ; how an angler 
 feels about them, 34-35; 
 whether they can hear, 
 .59-60; domesticated, 95 
 Fish named : 
 
 Grass-pike, 206 
 
 Grayling, 58, 180 
 
 Grilse, 234 
 
 Ouananiche, 43, 45, 50, 
 51 
 
 Pickerel, 135 
 
 Pike, 17, 96 
 
 Salmon, 38, 44, 234 
 
 Sunfish, 206 
 
 Trout, 58, 60, 145, 155, 
 172, 1 80, 206, 211, 213, 
 226, 230 
 
 " Fishin Jimmy, 152 
 Fishing : passim ; an affair 
 of luck, 1 1 ; lucky days 
 for, 12; a means of es 
 cape from routine, 20 ; the 
 only eventful mode of 
 life, 21 ; good luck in, 
 deserving of gratitude, 
 36; the schooling of a 
 woman angler, 119; 
 catching pickerel through 
 the ice, 135 ; the best win 
 ter diversion indoors, 139; 
 books on, 144, 146; "Fish 
 and Fishing," 151, in old 
 streams and new, 238 
 " Fish-Tails and a Few 
 Others," 150 
 
250 
 
 Index 
 
 Flies : various theories for 
 the use of, 50; the grass 
 hopper a last hope, 51 ; 
 style in, 144 
 
 Flowers: wild and tame, 
 91-92; luck in finding, 94 
 Flowers named : 
 Anemone, 243 
 Anemone, double ru;, 
 
 94 
 
 Bishop s-cap, 243 
 Gentian, fringed, 93 
 Hare-bells, 81 
 Heart s-ease, 244 
 Laurel, mountain, 81 
 Loose-strife, yellow, 81 
 Orchid, purple-fringed, 
 
 81 
 
 Prince s pine, 81 
 Rosemary, 241, 244 
 Rue, 244 
 Twin-flower, 82 
 Violet, 243 
 " Fly-Fisher s Entomology, 
 
 The," 60 
 " Fly-Rods and F 1 y - 
 
 Tackle," 152 
 Fontainebleau, 95 
 Forester, Frank, 151 
 Forests: real and artificial, 
 
 96-97 
 
 Fox: red, 197 
 Franck, Richard : a detrac 
 tor of Walton, 140 
 Franconia Mountains, 184 
 Freedom of spirit : an es 
 sential of good company, 
 
 "Fresh Woods," 150 
 Friendliness : its magical 
 power, 79 
 
 Friendship-fire, the little, 
 235- 
 
 Gambling : a harmless 
 variety of, 17 
 
 " Game Fish of the North, 
 151 
 
 Garfield, Mount, 185 
 
 Geiranger-Fjord: cliffs of, 
 170 
 
 Golf : respectfully alluded 
 to, 71 
 
 Gratitude : a virtue, 36 
 
 Grayling, 58 
 
 Great South Bay, the, 192 
 
 Greetings : their signifi 
 cance, 9; superior quality 
 of the angler s salutation, 
 ii 
 
 Grey, Sir Edward, 42 
 
 Greygrown, my Lady: her 
 praise, dedication, 79, 162, 
 174, 193-199 
 
 Habits: the pleasure of 
 
 changing them, 20 
 Hall, Bradnock, 150 
 Hamlet, no 
 Hastings, Lady Elizabeth: 
 
 her " liberal education," 
 
 H3 
 
 " Heart, A Contented," 142 
 " Heart of Midlothian, 
 
 The," in 
 Henry Esmond : romantic 
 
 love in, in 
 Higginson, Colonel Thomas 
 
 Wentworth : quoted, 94 
 Honeymoon : a Norwegian, 
 
 1 60 
 Houses : the disadvantage 
 
 oj living in them, 22; 
 
Index 
 
 251 
 
 built by four-footed ar 
 chitects, 216 
 
 Humour : as a means of 
 grace, 78 
 
 "Hypatia," ill 
 
 "I Go A-Fishing," 152 
 Indolence, defined, 201 ; the 
 
 teachers of, 204 
 Indvik Fjord, 175 
 Irving, Washington : quoted, 
 
 81, 157 
 
 James, William : his de 
 fence of chance, 18 
 James of Scotland, 87 
 Jefferies, Richard : quoted, 
 
 183 
 Jefferson, Joseph: as an 
 
 author, 58; as fisherman, 
 
 241 
 
 Jerkin, 170 
 
 "John Inglesant," in 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel: his 
 
 word " clubable," 63 ; 
 
 quoted, 103 
 " Jungle Books, The," 112 
 
 Kant, Immanuel : his rules 
 
 for talk, 69 
 Kariol, 165, 170 
 Katahdin, Mount, 231 
 King, Clarence: a good 
 
 talker, 69 
 " King Lear," no 
 Kingsley, Charles, 148 
 Kinsman Mountain, 186 
 
 Lafayette, Mount, 186 
 Lake George : a scene on, 17 
 
 Lakes named: 
 
 George, 17, 164 
 Loenvand, the, 175 
 Moosehead, 120, 229 
 Pharaoh, 130 
 Rangeley, 123 
 St. John, 53 
 
 Lamb, Charles : quoted, 9 ; 
 his essays, 90, 142 
 
 " Land of Steady Habits, 
 The," 20 
 
 Landaff Valley, 186 
 
 Long, Mr. Andrew : his 
 " Angling Sketches," 150 
 
 Life : reflections, chiefly 
 upon its uncertainty, 
 19-20, 26, 39-40, 98-99; 
 the philosophy of a quiet 
 life, 200-203 
 
 " Little ^ Flowers of St. 
 Francis," quoted, 27 
 
 Loenvand, the, 175 
 
 Long Island: a good place 
 to cure insomnia, 191 
 
 "Lorna Doone," in, 151 
 
 Love : romantic love not the 
 "greatest thing in the 
 world," 112 
 
 Lovers: sudden appearance 
 of, in the landscape ^ in 
 spring, 102 ; their relation 
 to the landscape, 102; 
 charm added to the land 
 scape by, 102 ; society ar 
 ranged for their conveni 
 ence, 103 
 
 Lowell, James Russell : 
 quoted, 56 ; alluded to, 142 
 
 Lucian: his dubious fish 
 story, 60 
 
 Luck : indispensable to fish 
 ermen, n ; varieties of, 
 
252 
 
 Index 
 
 13 ; the charm of trying 
 it, 15 ; a subject for grati 
 tude^ 36 ; not to be boasted 
 of, 38; a parable of life, 
 38; the way to make 
 friends of it, 40 
 
 Luther, Martin: his opinion 
 of pike, 17 
 
 Lytton, Sir Edward Bul- 
 wer, his fishy advice, 155 
 
 "Macbeth," no 
 
 Macduff, the Reverend Bel- 
 
 licosus, 71 
 
 " Madame Delphine," in 
 Malignancy: a brilliant ex 
 ample of, 25 
 
 Marriage : philosophically 
 considered, 111-113, 162 
 Marston, Mr. Edward, 150 
 Mary, " Bloody " Queen, 87 
 " Maxims and Hints for an 
 
 Angler," 148 
 
 McCabe, W. Gordon: how 
 he crossed the Atlantic, 
 78 
 McCosh, Dr. James: his 
 
 manner of speech, 77 
 Milton, John : quoted, 63 
 Montaigne, M. de: quoted, 
 title-page, 70 ; variations 
 on a theme from, 71 
 Moody, Martin, Esq., 138 
 " Moor and the Loch, The/ 
 
 147 
 
 Moosilauke, 186 
 Mountains: the real owner 
 
 of the, 1 86 
 "My Novel," 155 
 
 Nedre Vasenden: the sta 
 tion at, 170 
 
 Newport: sport at, 14 
 
 Norcross Point, 231 
 
 Norris, Thaddeus, 151 
 
 Norway: a honeymoon in, 
 163 
 
 "Notre Dame," in 
 
 North Christopher, 58, 148 
 \ 
 
 " Occasional Reflections " 
 of Hon. Robert Boyle, 
 149 
 
 Odnaes, 164, 166 
 
 "Ole Stracted," ill 
 
 Othello, no 
 
 "Owl Creek Letters," 152 
 
 Parrots: productive of un- 
 
 Christian feelings, 64 
 " Peace and War," in 
 Penn, Richard, 148 
 Peppermint, 83 
 Pike, 17, 96 
 Piscator, 142 
 Plutarch : his fish story of 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, 
 
 152 
 
 Preserves : for fish, 95 
 Pride: unbecoming in a 
 
 fisherman, 37 
 
 Prime, Dr. William C, 152 
 " Procession of the Flowers, 
 
 The," 93 
 Pronunciation, correct : as a 
 
 mania, 76 
 
 "Quo Vadis?" in 
 
 Rabbit: cotton-tail, 197 
 " Rambles with a Fishing- 
 
Index 
 
 253 
 
 Rod," by E. S. Roscoe, 
 149 
 
 Randsfjord, 163, 164 
 Raphael, the Archangel : his 
 
 one-sided affability, 63 
 Rauma: the vale of the, 179 
 " Recreations of Christo 
 pher North, The," 148 
 " Redgauntlet " : angling in, 
 
 154 
 Remembrance : altars of, 
 
 242 
 
 " Rip Van Winkle," in, 241 
 " Rise of Silas Lapham, 
 
 The," in 
 Ristigouche, 32 
 "Rivals, The," ill 
 Rivers, named: 
 
 Ausable, 239 
 
 Baegna, 168 
 
 Bouquet, 173 
 
 Dove, 39 
 
 Gale, 184, 239 
 
 Hudson, 91 
 
 Lea, 39 
 
 Marshpee, 58 
 
 Meacham, 119 
 
 Metabetchouan, 79 
 
 Moose, 120 
 
 Naeselv, 171 
 
 Natasheebo, 131 
 
 Neversink, 236 
 
 New, 40 
 
 Penobscot, 173 
 
 P tit Saguenay, 36 
 
 Randsfjord, 163, 164 
 
 Rauma, 179 
 
 Ristigouche, 32 
 
 Saguenay, 37, 38 
 
 Shepaug, 236 
 
 Rivers, named: 
 
 Swiftwater, 81, 94, 236, 
 
 241, 242, 244 
 Ulyaa, 179 
 Willowemoc, 236 
 Rob Roy: an eel named, 60 
 " Rod in India, The," 150 
 Romola, in 
 Romsdal, the, 170, 179 
 Ronalds, Mr. : quoted, 60 
 Roosevelt, Mr. Robert B., 
 
 I5i 
 
 Roscoe, E. S., 149 
 " Roundabout Papers," 67 
 
 Sabbath-Day Point, 16 
 
 Sage, Mr. Dean: piscatorial 
 library of, 143 
 
 Saguenay, the Big, 37, 38 
 
 Saguenay, the Little, 36 
 
 Salmon, 35, 57 
 
 " Salmonia," 148 
 
 " Schuylkill Fishing Com 
 pany," 151 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter: quoted, 
 
 I54 
 
 Sermon : a good one, 57 
 
 Singlewitz, Solomon: 
 quoted, 117, 160 
 
 " Sketch Book," 157 
 
 Skogstad: the station at, 
 172 
 
 Skydsgut, 167 
 
 Slosson, Mrs. Annie Trum- 
 bull : her " Fishin Jim 
 my," 152 
 
 Slumber Song, A, 245 
 
 Smallness : not a mark of 
 inferiority, 90 
 
 Smith, Captain John, 89 
 
 Smudge: the art of kind 
 ling a, 226 
 
2 54 
 
 Index 
 
 Spearmint, 83 
 
 St. Anthony of Padua, 57 
 
 St. B randan, 57 
 
 St. Francis of Assisi, 27 
 
 St. Peter, 18, 36 
 
 Stedman, Mr. Edmund Cla 
 rence, 145 
 
 Steele, Richard: quoted, 113 
 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis : 
 quoted, 62, 191 
 
 Stoddart, Thomas Tod, 147 
 
 Stolkjaerres, 170 
 
 Storm King Club: a festi 
 val of, 91 
 
 Strawberry, the: one that 
 God made, 85 ; imported 
 to England, 87; wild and 
 tame, 91 
 
 Stuefloten, 178, 179 
 
 Style: the value of, 91 
 
 Summer Schools : persons 
 for whom they have no 
 attractions^ 15 
 
 Sunday: fishing on, 12 
 
 " Superior Fishing," 151 
 
 Swiftwater: a well-named 
 brook, 81 
 
 Talk: anglers urged to, 
 56-58 ; varieties of, 66-70 ; 
 obstacles to its perfection, 
 7i, 75, 76 
 
 Taxability : defined, 62, 63 ; 
 a talkable person, 64 ; con 
 trasted with talkativity, 
 66; not the same as elo 
 quence, 66 ; commended, 
 68-80; the fourfold con 
 ditions of, 71 ; goodness, 
 71 ; freedom, 75 ; gaiety, 
 78; friendship, 80 
 
 Tarn of the Elk, the, 176; 
 
 trout in, 177 
 Telephone : its influence on 
 
 manners, 10 
 Tennyson: as a talker, 77; 
 
 quoted, 61 
 Tent : life in a, 23 
 Thackeray, W. M. : quoted, 
 
 67 
 Thersites : as a journalist, 
 
 74 
 
 Thomas, H. S., 150 
 "Three Musketeers, The," 
 
 in, 177 
 Timoleon : the unlucky one, 
 
 38 
 Tobias, the son of Tobit: 
 
 his adventure with a pike, 
 
 96 
 Tommy s Rock: a good 
 
 place for blackfish, 14 
 " Treasure Island," 177 
 Trees : why boys and girls 
 
 love them, 94 
 Trench, Archbishop, 201 
 Trolley-car : the blessings 
 
 of its absence, 25 
 Trout, 58, 60, 155, 172, 207, 
 
 213, 230 ; taste of, for flies, 
 
 144; in Norway, 172; in 
 
 the Tarn of the Elk, 177; 
 
 in the Rauma in Norway, 
 
 179; a good catch, 211; 
 
 eating versus catching, 
 
 226 
 Twin Mountain, 185 
 
 Vacations: can be taken 
 without long journeys, 21 
 
 Valders, the vale of, 168, 
 181 
 
 Virgil: quoted, 145 
 
Index 
 
 255 
 
 Virginia: talk in, 78; its 
 strawberries, 87, 90 ; 
 bread in a Virginia coun 
 try house, 179 
 
 Walton, Izaak : described, 
 37, 38 ; e quoted, 37, 85; 
 his luck in literature, 139 ; 
 his detractors, 140 ; Dr. 
 Bethune s edition of, 151 ; 
 fishermen born, not made, 
 
 151 
 
 Warner, Charles Dudley : 
 quoted, 215 
 
 Water : emblem of insta 
 bility, 15 
 
 Weather: a subject of 
 talk, 63, 69; various re 
 marks on, 22-24, 98 
 
 Webster, Daniel : as an 
 angler, 58 
 
 Wells, Mr. Henry P., 60, 
 
 152 
 Wife: the right kind of a, 
 
 79 
 
 Wilson, Professor John, 
 
 "A. M." and " F.R.S." 
 
 147, 148 
 
 "Winter s Tale, A," ill 
 Women wanting in natural 
 
 ability to fish, 125 
 Woods : scenes in the, 81, 
 
 96-97 
 "Words and Their Uses," 
 
 201 
 Wordsworth, William : 
 
 quoted, 14 
 Wotton, Sir Henry : quoted, 
 
 134 
 
 Youth : a recipe for renew 
 ing, 92 
 
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 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 , u LD 
 
 flMll19F? 
 
 LD 21A-50m-8, 61 
 (Cl795slO)476B 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley