t if it should be good, he may receive an unearned
blessing of abundance not only in his basket, but also in his head and
his heart, his memory and his fancy. He may come home from some obscure,
ill-named, lovely stream--some Dry Brook, or Southwest Branch of
Smith's Run--with a creel full of trout, and a mind full of grateful
recollections of flowers that seemed to bloom for his sake, and birds
that sang a new, sweet, friendly message to his tired soul. He may climb
down to "Tommy's Rock" below the cliffs at Newport (as I have done many
a day with my lady Greygown), and, all unnoticed by the idle, weary
promenaders in the path of fashion, haul in a basketful of blackfish,
and at the same time look out across the shining sapphire waters and
inherit a wondrous good fortune of dreams--

"Have glimpses that will make him less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."

But all this, you must remember, depends upon something secret and
incalculable, something that we can neither command nor predict. It is
an affair of gift, not of wages. Fish (and the other good things which
are like sauce to the catching of them) cast no shadow before. Water is
the emblem of instability. No one can tell what he shall draw out of
it until he has taken in his line. Herein are found the true charm and
profit of angling for all persons of a pure and childlike mind.

Look at those two venerable gentlemen floating in a skiff upon the
clear waters of Lake George. One of them is a successful statesman, an
ex-President of the United States, a lawyer versed in all the curious
eccentricities of the "lawless science of the law." The other is a
learned doctor of medicine, able to give a name to all diseases from
which men have imagined that they suffered, and to invent new ones
for those who are tired of vulgar maladies. But all their learning is
forgotten, their cares and controversies are laid aside, in "innocuous
desuetude." The Summer School of Sociology is assembled. The Medical
Congress is in session.

But they care not--no, not so much as the value of a single live bait.
The sun shines upon them with a fervent heat, but it irks them not.
The rain descends, and the winds blow and beat upon them, but they
are unmoved. They are securely anchored here in the lee of Sabbath-Day
Point.

What enchantment binds them to that inconsiderable spot? What magic
fixes their eyes up