But ah, the fever's poisoned arrow!
The jungle's breath, the summer's glow!
Our broad array grew swiftly narrow,
And scanty hundreds met the foe.

O splendid longings, thoughts and fancies
Which tread the city of the soul,
How few of all your spirit-lances
Arrive where duty's trumpets roll!

J. W. DE FOREST.

THE FASCINATIONS OF ANGLING.

I.

It is the cheerful verdict of all anglers that they find no other
pastime so fascinating. This conclusion is not based upon the mere
mechanism of the art, but upon the fact that it is eminently healthful,
rational, and elevating, blending the picturesque and exhilarating in
such equal proportions as to exactly meet the demands of the quiet
student, the contemplative philosopher, and the care-worn man of
business, whose wearied or exhausted nature covets just the solitude
and repose which no other recreation so abundantly furnishes.

This of course could not be said of angling if it had no other
attraction than the excitement it affords. But I am sure no one ever
became an enthusiastic angler who had no other or higher conceptions of
its possibilities. The mere act of taking fish is but a minor note in
the full volume of harmony which comes to its appreciative disciples
amid the vast solitudes where they find their best sport and highest
pleasure. Ask any true angler what pictures come up most vividly before
him as "the time of the singing of birds" draweth nigh, when it is
right to "go a-fishing." His answer will not be, "The rise and strike
of trout or salmon," although both will pass upon the canvas like rays
of sunshine upon the quiet repose of a forest landscape. He will rather
discourse to you of flowing river, of murmuring brook, of cloud-capped
mountain, of waving forest, of sunshine and shadow, of rapid and
cascade, of tent and camp fire, of silence and solitude, of cozy nook,
of undisturbed repose, of refreshing slumber, of invigorated health,
and the _abandon_ of delight which neither word nor pencil can
adequately portray. I have heard such "simple wise men" talk of their
favorite pastime until they glowed with ecstasy, without once naming
fish or fishing. That is but the body of the art. Its spirit consists
in what is seen and felt. An angler, "born so," as Walton hath it,
retains a more vivid recollection of the foam-encircled pool where
salmon love to congregate than of the "rise" and "strike" which gave
him his e