PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 15 



ing, after the toil and worry and fret of business, 

 as the silence of the woods ; nothing so pervading 

 in its mellowing influence upon nerve and brain 

 and spirit as the pleasant murmur of the flowing 

 river; nothing so health-giving as the aroma of 

 nature's grand forest laboratory ; and nothing so 

 exhilarating as the rise and swirl and rush of 

 trout or salmon. Those whom I have thus known, 

 with scarcely an exception, have preserved the 

 vigor of lusty youth longer and more uniformly 

 than their contemporaries who have sought other 

 means of recuperation and other sources of enjoy- 

 ment; from which I infer either that few but 

 those who are blest with robust constitutions ever 

 acquire a passion for angling, or that the pastime 

 itself creates the healthful vitality which insures a 

 vigorous old age. But whether the pastime is 

 merely preservative or is really curative in its 

 medicinal effects, it is certainly beneficent, and 

 deserves the high place it holds in the affections 

 of its happy, healthy and enthusiastic votaries. 



However angling may be classed by others 

 whether as a fool's pastime or as a wise man's recre- 

 ation I have always found great pleasure in 

 recognizing what its indulgence costs me as so 

 much saved from my doctor's bill. And as my 

 doctor, who passed his seventy-fifth year before 

 " the grasshopper became a burden," was himself 



