PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 19 



then would it be economy to spend an occasional 

 month in the woods ; for here the muscles as well 

 as the brain and the heart find recuperative aliment. 

 The scripture hath it : " He that maketh haste 

 to be rich shall not be innocent " not that he 

 always does wrong to his neighbor, but that he too 

 often and most inexcusably does wrong to himself. 



But angling is not alone a health-retaining and 

 a health-giving pastime. It is a medicine to the 

 mind as well as to the body ; and unlike too many 

 of the pleasures of life, it scatters no seeds from 

 which the nettle of remorse may grow to sting the 

 conscience or drive sunshine from the heart. Like 

 the unclouded friendships of youth, it leaves only 

 joyous memories. Peter did not weep because he 

 took fish with net or angle, but because he did what 

 it has become a proverb no angler can do and have 

 " luck," and if Uncle Toby's hasty speech had been 

 as free from guile as an angler's heart while plying 

 his vocation, no angel's tear need to have fallen to 

 blot out the record. Blessed pastime, whose day 

 never ends, but whose sun casts a perpetual radi- 

 ance upon the " simple wise man " who, regularly 

 as the return of " the time of the singing of birds," 

 sayeth to himself, " I go a-fishing ! " 



We thank God, therefore, for these woods, these 

 mountains and these ever-singing waters. They 

 are not only the angler's Elysium, but the great 

 medicine chest of nature. 



