WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 39 



the unlocking of their official prison house ; the lifting of a 

 leaden weight from their weary brain; a translation from 

 work and worry to needed rest and absolute freedom and 

 repose. The contrast between what they endured and what 

 they enjoyed between the red-tape technicalities of official 

 life and the rollicking abandon permissible in the cosy camp 

 on trout stream or salmon rjver is the contrast between 

 purgatory and paradise ; and when the rebound comes it is 

 felt in every cell of the brain, in every fibre of the body and 

 in every pulsation of the heart. I knew just how a Chief 

 Justice felt when, coming in from our salmon pools to lunch, 

 he cast himself at full length beneath the welcome shade of 

 a spreading pine, with face aglow and his voice tremulous 

 with devout thanksgiving and exclaimed : 



" 'Begone, my cares, I give ye to the winds.' 



"Ah! old man, old man, this indeed is rest." 



"Yes, my dear fellow, it is pleasant and jolly," was my 

 response, as I ripped off a piece c f fresh hemlock bark to 

 serve as a table for our humble repast. 



These ripples of ecstacy; these indefinable heart-zephyrs; 

 these foretastes of a higher felicity, which drop into the 

 soul like golden sun-glints through the quivering leaves of 

 the waving forests, are among the unpurchasable luxuries 

 of the appreciative angler, and come to no other in such full 

 measure. 



Vice-President Wheeler is one of the distinguished anglers 

 of our own time. His visits to the Saranacs and adjacent 

 waters were and still are as regular as the seasons. His 

 home is in close proximity to the best fishing grounds in 

 the State, and he has grown up as familiar with all of them 

 as he is with the various rooms in his own domicile. He 

 has been a member of our State Legislature, has repeatedly 

 served his district in the House ot Representatives, been 

 Yice-President of the United States, and a busy man al- 

 ways, but he has never intermitted his annual visits to the 

 beautiful lakes which make a terrestrial paradise of the far- 

 famed Adirondacks. When, years ago, he was talked of for 

 the high position which he subsequently filled, I ventured 



