I love the way it's written. It's a collection of a few things by a few people. The phrasing of sentences has an elegance now lost. That's neither good nor bad, just the way it is.
A couple of things I found while skimming:
Many say the same thing, including me, but not quite so well.Nothing can be more enjoyable than to wade a stream, to feel the rush of water about you, the constant excitement, the forgetting of all other affairs, the out-door life, the health and appetite, the meeting with other anglers and the telling over of the day's sport. Here is a fascination that will last you all your life, and be a delight to you in extreme old age. Let me warn you, my reader, if you are not a lover of Nature and out-door life you are missing one of the greatest blessings this world affords.
I remember writing about this once, I actually recall hearing almost voices. But maybe it's just written in my head.
I recall the musical notes and the sound of breathing from the slight rise and fall of even a river as it flows. I distinctly recall mentioning this one day while far up Mill Creek. Kind of like this:Old anglers have ears trained to nicest sense of sound in the music of running water, and will know the physical conditions, even when unseen, which cause many of the notes of sound in a trout brook.
This is a common problem that drives some that I know absolutely crazy.Unobstructed on inclines, rapidly flowing water in small volume has the inimitable purl, so exquisite that even in music the sweetest sounds are called liquid, like a tinkling rill.
Kind of creepy for me. I remember recently mentioning getting the colors out of the gray of the shadows.The true angler sees much, but will realize that as compared with what is about him, he sees very little.
Not sure if the following is a lament or supposed to be hopeful.The stones and gravel of the banks catch green reflections from the boughs above. The bushes receive grays and yellows from the ground. Every hair-breadth of polished surface gives back a little bit of blue of the sky or gold of sun. This local color is again disguised and modified by the hue of the light, or quenched in the gray of the shadows.
There was so much more. I hate reading on screen. I'll have to print this out.The result is inevitable. With bowed and reverent head the angler hopes that when he has crossed the Delectable Mountains, and, one poor thread in the web of universal history, has waved back in his mute farewells to his favorite trout stream before he enters the Unknown and is swallowed by Oblivion, a merciful and loving Heaven may furnish to him the counterpart of this brook. Will he not find a heavenly stream on that Other Side? Will not its waters sing as with a new song, its forests whisper, its flowers enchant? Yes, for there stands the message of Holy Writ, the last words of John, Seer and Prophet — words of inspiration and promise: "And he showed me a pure river of water of life."
Just goes to show that nothing is really ever new. Just new for the time we're in.
