WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 4.1 



lungs as full of invigorating elixir as his heart is of grati- 

 tude and good will. Those who have felt all this and all 

 of us have will not think the less of our distinguished 

 fellow citizen because he mostly angles with the troll, and 

 seeks Jiis pleasure and recreation in moving to and fro upon 

 the lakes, which sit like sparkling gems among the everlast- 

 ing hills of the far-famed Adirondacks. I hope, when my 

 right hand shall forget its cunning, and when from old age 

 or decrepitude I shall have fought my last battle on salmon 

 waters, to be able to glide gently toward the dark river in 

 the quiet and peaceful and happy way in which my honored 

 friend has so long found his highest pleasure and most 

 perfect repose. 



Gen. Arthur, now President of the United States, is also a 

 well known "brother of the angle." He has all the best 

 qualities of the most famous disciples of the gentle art. He 

 is patient, courteous, companionable, enthusisastic and 

 expert. He is, withal, an ardent lover of all that is grand 

 and beautiful and picturesque in nature. As I have said of 

 another I can say of him, in all that moves our sensibilities 

 and kindliest sympathies he is as impressible as a child and 

 as gentle as a woman. In spite of the rough school in which 

 he has been a life-long pupil, his heart is "open as day to 

 melting charity, " and his poetic tastes enable him always 

 and everywhere, to see 



"Sermons in stones, books in running brooks, 

 And good in everything." 



His love of the art is the outgrowth of his aesthetic sus - 

 ceptibilities, and this love will remain with him long after 

 the dazzling glories of office shall have lost their charm, be- 

 cause the beauties of nature are as varied and exhaustless as 

 the munificence and majesty of their beneficent author. 

 The pleasurable emotions they excite, like the eternal prin- 

 ciple mysteriously linked to our finite humanity, never die. 

 Than Gen. Arthur no man can pitch a tent more quickly, 

 adorn a camp more tastefully, cast a fly more deftly, fight a 

 salmon more artistically or bring him to gaff more gracefully. 

 I owe to his courtesy the opportunity to kill my firs* salmon, 



