214 PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 



walk about, if one so pleases, in slippers and shirt- 

 sleeves, than presto, silk trails, patent-leather boots 

 arid kid gloves drive us elsewhere to find simple 

 comfort, unincumbered by stately formalities and 

 white cravats. But Martin deserves the prosperity 

 he is enjoying ; and he knows so well " how it is 

 himself," that he always reserves " space and verge 

 enough " in his ample mansion to permit the unos- 

 tentatious and quietly disposed angler to enjoy 

 himself in his own way without disturbing the less 

 simple-minded guests who come hither to breathe 

 the pure mountain air and renew their youth. 



Notwithstanding the nonsense Murray and others 

 have written about the beneficent influence of a 

 trip through the Adirondacks upon the health of 

 hopeless invalids, the real invalids those who 

 require home-like repose as well as change of air 

 have generally too much good sense to believe 

 that an exhausting journey, exposed to all sorts of 

 weather and to inconveniences and hardships un- 

 bearable without very considerable vitality, can, by 

 possibility, be beneficial. To be sure, the year suc- 

 ceeding the publication of Murray's book, not a few, 

 standing on the very brink of the grave, were de- 

 luded into the hope that, if they could but manage 

 to drag themselves or to be dragged from the Sara- 

 nacs to the Fulton range, they would, by some 

 undefinable process, experience the miracle of a 



