PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 231 



At the rapids, about midway between the lower 

 and middle Saranac lakes, there is as pretty a place 

 from which to cast as can be found in the world. 

 You stand upon solid rock, slightly elevated above 

 the rapid-flowing stream, and can throw, if you 

 have the skill, without fear of bush or brake, an 

 hundred feet. It is the first opportunity one has, 

 en route, after his long winter's rest, to shake 

 out the wrinkles of disuse. I sometimes wonder 

 whether, on some pleasant day in May, not long 

 hence, I shall stand on this sunny spot, where 1 

 have stood during some portion of every season 

 these twenty years, and find, in attempting to 

 make my usual cast, that my " right hand has for- 

 got its cun;iing." As old age cools the blood and 

 dims the vision, and checks the elasticity of brain 

 and limb, such thoughts sometimes come to the 

 most buoyant, and often cast a shadow across the 

 sunniest landscape. But it is only a shadow. With 

 the thought comes up the vision of another river, 

 brighter and clearer and purer than that which 

 flows with such gentle gracefulness at my feet 

 "a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, 

 proceeding out of the throne of God and of the 

 Lamb." It is a vision which reconciles all thought- 

 ful anglers to the quick-coming time when these 

 pleasant places, which now know them, shall 

 know them no more forever. 



