ith the occasion, he rises solemnly and goes to the
toby-closet at the end of his generous fireplace, where the apple-log
specially cut for the occasion is burning merrily, and as we all fall
silent, knowing well what is coming, he unlocks the door and takes from
the shelf a bottle of old peach brandy which, having uncorked, he
gravely smells of and possibly lets his nearest neighbour smell of too.
Then he brings from the sideboard a server set with diminutive glasses
that have been polished until they shine for the great occasion, and,
having filled them all with the ripe liquor, he passes them around to
each of us. We have all risen and are becomingly solemn as he now
proposes the toast of the year--and it is always the same toast:

"Here's to moderation--in all things!"

He takes a sip or two, and continues:

"Here's to temperance--the queen of the virtues."

So we all drink off our glasses. Our mellow old friend smacks his lips,
corks the tall bottle, and returns it to his toby-closet, where it
reposes undisturbed for another year.

"And now, gentlemen," he says, heartily, "let us go in to dinner."...

As I think of it, now that it is written, this story bears no very close
relationship to my original subject, and yet it seemed to follow
naturally enough as I set it down, and to belong with the simple and
well-flavoured things of the garden and fields; and recalling the advice
of Cobbett to his nephew on the art of writing, "never to alter a
thought, for that which has come of itself into your mind is likely to
pass into that of another more readily and with more effect than
anything which you can by reflection invent," I leave it here just as I
wrote it, hoping that the kinship of my genial old friend with simple
and natural and temperate things may plainly appear.

CHAPTER V

PLACES OF RETIREMENT

"Good God, how sweet are all things here!
How beautiful the fields appear!
How cleanly do we feed and lie!
Lord, what good hours do we keep!
How quietly we sleep!"

CHARLES COTTON (a friend of Izaak Walton)

_April 29th_.

I have been spending a Sunday of retirement in the woods. I came out
with a strange, deep sense of depression, and though I knew it was
myself and not the world that was sad, yet I could not put it away from
me. ... As I write, the wood seems full of voices, the little rustling
of leaves, the minute sounds of twigs chafing together, the cry of frogs
from the swamp so steady