TO THE READER 



To the living, with whom I have enjoyed long days of unalloyed 

 pleasure in boyhood, by the dear old mill-pond, and in manhood by 

 the mountain stream, on the sylvan lake, or within sound of " the 

 warning off the lee shore, speaking in breakers," I send these pages 

 as a reminder of the past. In reference to those who are no more on 

 earth, I quote as applicable those simply beautiful lines of Walton, 

 and say that my allusion to some of the incidents herein contained, 

 "is, or rather was, a picture of my own disposition, especially in such 

 days as I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing with honest Nat 

 and R. Roe ; but they are gone, and with them most of my pleasant 

 hours, even as a shadow that passeth away and returneth not." 



