BROOK TROUT 



pride of fern-plumes may wave and rustle in their green 

 refreshment, — gold and pearl may throb in clouds whose 

 shadows wing their way over mountain, glen, and for- 

 est, — all through a sun-shafted fantasia of gold-dusted 

 wine-air which is perfumed by arbutus, lily, violet, and 

 forget-me-not, — the blossoming life all in a tangle of 

 fragrant day-dreams. Fairy tints may dance and 

 quiver through that baby of prismatic mist, the tiny 

 rainbow as it spans the cascade. All the glamour and 

 riot of wild freshness may dwell in the mysterious 

 woods, waters, sky, as a June breeze makes the whole 

 a harp of whispering leaves, purling crystal, and curv- 

 ing blue. Place the angler in closest touch with it all, 

 as he wades the stream with ears, heart, and spirit recep- 

 tive and alert, — foliage near, rushing water about him, 

 changing, intermingling light and shadow over him as 

 it falls in dancing fretwork. Yet even all this does 

 not explain his great love. What causes it ? 



It is because in this Nature about him is a Mystery 

 of Life. An evasive, sleeplessly unwearied living prin- 

 ciple dwells in the leaf he may pluck and crush, and 

 is forming its colors, shaping its forms. Fern and 

 flower, traced with life-streaming veins, specially text- 

 ured, with hues that blend and part again, substantially 

 present, possessed, yet hold a secret of living being and 

 growing life that forever eludes his search, and always 

 will. Life even more mystic than the spirit that he 

 feels in himself is present before him, inscrutable, reg- 

 nant, locked and barred away from his knowledge. 



