DIES PISCATORI^. 579 



raountain, which the eager sportsman endeavors in vain to 

 no purpose to reproach." And concluded — " The poor man, 

 Mr. President, reclines beneath the shade of some wide- 

 spreading and umbrageous tree, and calling his wife and the 

 rest of his. little children around him, bids their thoughts 

 inspire to scenes beyond the skies. He views Neptune, Plato, 

 Venus, and Jupiter, the Lost Pleides, the Auroly Bolyallis, 

 and other fixed stars, which it was the lot of the immorral 

 Newton first to depreciate and then to deplore." 



But a gray-headed man who cannot tie a decent knot in his 

 casting-line without the aid of his spectacles, should forget 

 such nonsense. There is one consolation, however, that this 

 "decay of natur," which brings with it the necessity for 

 glasses in seeing small objects within arm's length, gives in 

 like ratio, the power of seeing one's flies at a distance on the 

 water ; there was old Uncle Peter Stewart who could knock 

 a pheasant's head off at fifty yards with his rifle, and see a 

 gnat across the Beaverkill, when he was past sixty. 



Here is the sun shining as bright now as if he had not 

 blinked at noon, and such weather, not too hot and not too 

 cold ; I must acknowledge, though, my teeth did chatter this 

 morning when I waded across at the ford. 



" Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 

 The bridal of the earth and sky ; 

 The dew shall weep thy fall to night, 

 For thou must die." 



I'll start in here, for it appears there is always luck in the 

 pool or rift under the lee of the smoke where one cooks his 

 Trout. It is strange, too, for it seems natural that the smoke 

 would drive the flies away, and as a consequence the fish get 

 out of the notion of rising. But no matter, here goes. Just 

 as I supposed, and a brace of them at the first cast. Come 



