170 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [14:4— April, 1918 



during the last years of the reign of Charles II. These pages of 

 history reek with bloody wars, black intrigue, religious persecution, 

 rebellion, horrors of the plague, and the stern excitements of regi- 

 cide. These national tribulations find no mention in the serene, 

 sweet, sunny pages of Walton; pages on which no shadows rest 

 save those made by the foliage of trees or the pinions of a hawk 

 climbing his skyward spiral above green English meadows. In 

 Walton's book the sea was never made for armadas and ships 

 seeking conquest of new countries and vast riches ; nor yet for the 

 Mayflower and religious freedom do his blue waters roll. But 

 rather for ships that shall bring or carry the art of Italy and the 

 learning of Livy and Tully; and above all does he prize the seas 

 because of the teeming life in them and says: "The waters are 

 Nature's storehouse, in which she locks up her wonders." And 

 adds: "An ingenious Spaniard says that rivers and the inhabi- 

 tants of the water element were made for wise men to contemplate, 

 and fools to pass by without consideration." 



It is only by thus considering the history of his country during 

 Walton's life, and contrasting its turmoil with the serenity of his 

 spirit that we can understand him fully. We are told that he was 

 persecuted for religious and political opinions and that he felt 

 deeply and lived keenly with his times; so we come to understand 

 that it was from sheer self-preservation that he turned his back 

 upon the struggle and bitterness of civil strife, and turned his face 

 toward nature and his art of angling, which made him forget that 

 earth was less than paradise. 



"Any other brooks in any other shire would have served just 

 as well, save, that but one brook, at one time, could have had its 

 Isaak Walton. But the beauty he disclosed was not that of 

 brooks and woods. It was the delight of restfulness, the charm 

 of the open mind, the mind of him who is not in a hurry, who 

 envies not and hates not, who hath no fever in his blood, and asks 

 for nothing which life and sunshine may not freely give." 



— David Starr Jordan. 



