A room with seven doors--like the famous apartment in Washington's
headquarters at Newburgh--is an invitation to bewilderment.  I would
rather see one fair opening in life than be confused by three
dazzling chances.

There was a good story about fishing through the ice which formed
part of the stock-in-conversation of that ingenious woodsman, Martin
Moody, Esquire, of Big Tupper Lake.  "'T was a blame cold day," he
said, "and the lines friz up stiffer 'n a fence-wire, jus' as fast
as I pulled 'em in, and my fingers got so dum' frosted I could n't
bait the hooks.  But the fish was thicker and hungrier 'n flies in
June.  So I jus' took a piece of bait and held it over one o' the
holes.  Every time a fish jumped up to git it, I 'd kick him out on
the ice.  I tell ye, sir, I kicked out more 'n four hundred pounds
of pick'rel that morning.  Yaas, 't was a big lot, I 'low, but then
't was a cold day!  I jus' stacked 'em up solid, like cordwood."

Let us now leave this frigid subject!  Iced fishing is but a
chilling and unsatisfactory imitation of real sport.  The angler
will soon turn from it with satiety, and seek a better consolation
for the winter of his discontent in the entertainment of fishing in
books.

Angling is the only sport that boasts the honour of having given a
classic to literature.

Izaak Walton's success with THE COMPLEAT ANGLER was a fine
illustration of fisherman's luck.  He set out, with some aid from an
adept in fly-fishing and cookery, named Thomas Barker, to produce a
little "discourse of fish and fishing" which should serve as a
useful manual for quiet persons inclined to follow the contemplative
man's recreation.  He came home with a book which has made his name
beloved by ten generations of gentle readers, and given him a secure
place in the Pantheon of letters,--not a haughty eminence, but a
modest niche, all his own, and ever adorned with grateful offerings
of fresh flowers.

This was great luck.  But it was well-deserved, and therefore it has
not been grudged or envied.