Little Rivers

by

Henry Van Dyke

She spoke of the duty of being ready to welcome happiness as well as tender pain, and of the strength and endurance wins by being grateful for small daily choice, like the evening light, and the smell of roses, and the singing of birds. She spoke of the faith that rests on the Unseen Wisdom and Love like a child on its mother’s breast, and of the melting away of doubts and the warmth of an effort to do some good in the world.  And if that effort has conflict, an adventure, and confused noise, and mistakes, and an even defeats mingled with it, in the stormy years of youth, is not that to be expected? The burn roars and leaps in the den; the stream chase and frets through the rapids of the glen; the river does not grow calm and smooth until it nears the sea.  Courage is a virtue that the young cannot spare; to lose it is to grow old before the time; it is better to make a thousand mistakes and suffer a thousand reverses them to refuse the battle. Resignation is the final courage of old age; and it arrives in its own season; and is a good day when it comes to us. Then there are no more disappointments; for we have learned that it is even better to desire the things that we have than to have the things that we desire. And is not the best of all our hopes - the hope of immortality- always before us? How can we be dull or heavy while we have a new experience to look forward to?  It will be the most joyful of all our travels and adventures. It will bring us our best acquaintances and friendships. But there’s only one way to get ready for mortality, and that is to love this life, and live it as bravely and cheerfully and faithfully as we can.

And you will remember that love is not getting, but giving; not a wild dream of pleasure, and a man is so desire-oh no, but is not that-it is goodness, and honor, and peace, and pure living-yes, love is that; and it is the best thing in the world, and the thing that lives longest.

It is a noble stream, stately and swift and strong. It rises among the dense forests in the northern part of New Brunswick—and moist upland region, of never-filling springs and innumerous lakes—and pours a flood of clear, cold water one hundred and fifth miles northward and eastward through the hills into the head of the bay of Chaleurs. There are no falls in its course, but rapids everywhere. It is steadfast but not impetuous, quick but not turbulent, resolute and eager in it’s desire to get to the sea, like the life of a man who has a purpose.

An angler, like an Arab, regards hospitality  as a religious duty.  There seems to be something in the craft which inclines the heart to kindness and good-fellowship. Few anglers have I seen who were not pleasant to meet, and ready to do a good turn to a fellow-fisherman with a gift of a killing fly or the loan of rod. Not their own particular and well-proofed favorite, of course, for that is a treasure which no decent man would borrow; but with that exception the best in their store is at the service of a brother.

The wild desire to be forever racing against old Father Time is one of the kill-joys of modern life. That ancient traveler is sure to beat you in the long run, and as long as you are trying to rival him, he will make your life of burden.  But if you will only acknowledge his superiority and profess that you do not approve of racing after all, he will settle down quietly beside you and jog long like the most companionable of creatures. That is a pleasant pilgrimage in which the journey itself is part of the destination.

What a charm there is in watching a swift stream!  The eye never wearies of following its curls and eddies, the shadow of the waves dancing over the stones, the strange, crinkly lines of sunlight in the shallows. There is a sort of fascination in it, lulling and soothing the mind into a quietude which is even pleasanter than sleep, and making it almost impossible to do that of which we so often speak, but which we never quite accomplish –“think about nothing.”

Indeed, it is not from the highest peaks, according to my experience, that one gets the grandest prospects, but rather from those of middle height, which are so isolated as to give a wide circle of vision, and from which one can see both the valleys and summits.  It is possible, in this world, to climb too high for pleasure.

How pleasant it his to fish in such a place and at such an hour!  And the novelty of the scene, the grandeur of the landscape, lend a strange charm to the sport.  But the sport itself it is so familiar that one feels at home—the motion of the rod, the feathery swish of the line, the site of the rising fish—it all brings back one hundred woodland memories, and thoughts of good fishing comrades, some far away across the sea, and, perhaps, even now sitting around the forest camp-fire in Maine or Canada, and some with whom we shall keep company no more until we cross the greater If into the happy country whither they have preceded us.

“Nay, let me tell you, there be many that have 40 times our estates, that would give the greatest part of it to be healthful and cheerful like us; who, with the expense of a little money, had ate, and drank, and laughed, and angled, and sung, and slept securely; and rose next day, and cast away care, and sung, laughed, and angled again; which are blessings rich men cannot purchase with all their money.” Izaak Walton; The Complete Angler.

It is one of the charms of life in the woods that it brings back the high spirits of boyhood and renews the youth of the world. Plain fun, like plain food, taste good out-of-doors. Nectar is the sweet of a maple-tree. Ambrosia is only another name for well-turned flap-jacks. And all the immortals, sitting around the table of golden cedar-slabs, make merry when the clumsy Hephaistos, playing the part of Hebe, stumbles over a root and upsets the plate of cakes into the fire.

The ideals, the attachments—yes, even the dreams of youth are worth saving.  For the artificial tastes with which age tries to make good their loss grow very slowly and cast but a slender shade.  

[ With respect to the fish that got away] The spectacles of regret always magnify.

Who can explain the secret pathos of  Nature’s loveliness? It a touch of melancholy inherited from our mother Eve. It is the unconscious memory of the lost paradise.  It is the sense that even if we should find another Eden, would not be fit to enjoy it perfectly, nor stay in it forever. 

The honest fisherman reflects that this world is only a place of pilgrimage, but after all there is a good deal of cheer on the journey, if it is made with a contented heart.  He wonders who the dwellers in the scattered houses may be, and weaves romances other shadows on the curtain windows.  The lamps burning in the wayside shrines tell him stories of human love and patience and hope, and of divine forgiveness.  Dream-pictures of life float before him, tender and luminous, filled with the vague, soft atmosphere in which the simplest outlines gain a strange significance. 

Men may say what they will in praise of their houses, and grow eloquent upon the merits of various styles of architecture, but, for our part, we are agreed that there is nothing to be compared with a tent.  Is the most venerable and aristocratic form of human habitation.  Abraham and Sarah lived in it, and shared its hospitality with the angels.  It is exempt from the base tyranny of the plumber, the paper-hanger, and the gas-man.  It is not immovably bound to one spot of earth by the chain’s of the celler and a system of water-pipes.  It has a noble freedom of locomotion.  It follows the wishes of its inhabitants, and goes with them, the traveling home, as a spirit moves them to explore the wilderness.  At their pleasure, new beds of wildflowers surround it, new plantations of trees overshadow it, and new avenues of shining water lead to its ever-open door.  What the tent lacks in luxury it makes up in liberty: or rather let us say that liberty itself is the greatest luxury.  Another thing is worth remembering—a family which lives in a tent never can have a skeleton in the closet. 

Sometimes we caught plenty and sometimes few, but we never came back without a good catch of happiness. 

After all, the glow of life comes from friction with its difficulties.  If we cannot find them at home, we sally abroad and create them, just to warm up our mettle. 

When tulips bloom in Union Square,
And timid breaths of vernal air
    Are wandering down the dusty town,
Like children lost in Vanity Fair;

When every long, unlovely row
Of westward houses stands aglow
    And leads the eyes toward sunset skies,
Beyond the hills where green trees grow;

Then weary is the street parade,
And weary books, and weary trade:
    I'm only wishing to go a-fishing;
For this the month of May was made.

I guess the pussy-willows now
Are creeping out on every bough
    Along the brook; and robins look
For early worms behind the plough.

The thistle-birds have changed their dun
For yellow coats to match the sun;
    And in the same array of flame
The Dandelion Show's begun.

The flocks of young anemones
Are dancing round the budding trees:
    Who can help wishing to go a-fishing
In days as full of joy as these?

I think the meadow-lark's clear sound
Leaks upward slowly from the ground,
    While on the wing the bluebirds ring
Their wedding-bells to woods around:

The flirting chewink calls his dear
Behind the bush; and very near,
    Where water flows, where green grass grows,
Song-sparrows gently sing, "Good cheer:"

And, best of all, through twilight's calm
The hermit-thrush repeats his psalm:
    How much I'm wishing to go a-fishing
In days so sweet with music's balm!

'Tis not a proud desire of mine;
I ask for nothing superfine;
    No heavy weight, no salmon great,
To break the record, or my line:

Only an idle little stream,
Whose amber waters softly gleam,
    Where I may wade, through woodland shade,
And cast the fly, and loaf, and dream:

Only a trout or two, to dart
From foaming pools, and try my art:
    No more I'm wishing--old-fashioned fishing,
And just a day on Nature's heart.

A river is the most human and companionable of all inanimate things. It has a life, a character, a voice of its own, and is as full of good fellowship as a sugar-maple is of sap. It can talk in various tones, loud or low, and of many subjects, grave and gay. Under favourable circumstances it will even make a shift to sing, not in a fashion that can be reduced to notes and set down in black and white on a sheet of paper, but in a vague, refreshing manner, and to a wandering air that goes

"Over the hills and far away."

For real company and friendship, there is nothing outside of the animal kingdom that is comparable to a river.

[When I invite my friend] to share my orisons, or wander alone to indulge the luxury of grateful, unlaborious thought, my feet … turn to the bank ofa  river, for there the musings of solitude find a friendly accompaniment, and human intercourse is purified and sweetened by the flowing, murmuring water. It is by a river that I would choose to make love, and to revive old friendships, and to play with the children, and to confess my faults, and to escape from vain, selfish desires, and to cleanse my mind from all the false and foolish things that mar the joy and peace of living. Like David's hart, I pant for the water-brooks. There is wisdom in the advice of Seneca, who says, "Where a spring rises, or a river flows, there should we build altars and offer sacrifices."

[See] the song-sparrow, perched on his favourite limb of a young maple, dose beside the water, and singing happily, through sunshine and through rain. This is the true bird of the brook, after all: the winged spirit of cheerfulness and contentment, the patron saint of little rivers, the fisherman's friend. He seems to enter into your sport with his good wishes, and for an hour at a time, while you are trying every fly in your book, from a black gnat to a white miller, to entice the crafty old trout at the foot of the meadow-pool, the song-sparrow, close above you, will be chanting patience and encouragement. And when at last success crowns your endeavour, and the parti-coloured prize is glittering in your net, the bird on the bough breaks out in an ecstasy of congratulation: "catch 'im, catch 'im, catch 'im; oh, what a pretty fellow! sweet!"

In Professor John Wilson's Essays Critical and Imaginative, there is a brilliant description of a bishop fishing, which I am sure is drawn from the life: "Thus a bishop, sans wig and petticoat, in a hairy cap, black jacket, corduroy breeches and leathern leggins, creel on back and rod in hand, sallying from his palace, impatient to reach a famous salmon-cast ere the sun leave his cloud, . . . appears not only a pillar of his church, but of his kind, and in such a costume is manifestly on the high road to Canterbury and the Kingdom-Come." I have had the good luck to see quite a number of bishops, parochial and diocesan, in that style, and the vision has always dissolved my doubts in regard to the validity of their claim to the true apostolic succession.

There is such a thing as taking ourselves and the world too seriously, or at any rate too anxiously. Half of the secular unrest and dismal, profane sadness of modern society comes from the vain idea that every man is bound to be a critic of life, and to let no day pass without finding some fault with the general order of things, or projecting some plan for its improvement. And the other half comes from the greedy notion that a man's life does consist, after all, in the abundance of the things that he possesses, and that it is somehow or other more respectable and pious to be always at work making a larger living, than it is to lie on your back in the green pastures and beside the still waters, and thank God that you are alive.

The rod was a reward, yet not exactly of merit. It was an instrument of education in the hand of a father less indiscriminate than Solomon, who chose to interpret the text in a new way, and preferred to educate his child by encouraging him in pursuits which were harmless and wholesome, rather than by chastising him for practices which would likely enough never have been thought of, if they had not been forbidden. The boy enjoyed this kind of father at the time, and later he came to understand, with a grateful heart, that there is no richer inheritance in all the treasury of unearned blessings. For, after all, the love, the patience, the kindly wisdom of a grown man who can enter into the perplexities and turbulent impulses of a boy's heart, and give him cheerful companionship, and lead him on by free and joyful ways to know and choose the things that are pure and lovely and of good report, make as fair an image as we can find of that loving, patient Wisdom which must be above us all if any good is to come out of our childish race.

But when vacation came, with its annual exodus from the city, there was only one sign in the zodiac, and that was Pisces.

No country seemed to him tolerable without trout, and no landscape beautiful unless enlivened by a young river.

Among such scenes as these the boy pursued his education, learning many things that are not taught in colleges; learning to take the weather as it comes, wet or dry, and fortune as it falls, good or bad; learning that a meal which is scanty fare for one becomes a banquet for two--provided the other is the right person; learning that there is some skill in everything, even in digging bait, and that what is called luck consists chiefly in having your tackle in good order; learning that a man can be just as happy in a log shanty as in a brownstone mansion, and that the very best pleasures are those that do not leave a bad taste in the mouth.

 What could be more delightful than to spend an hour or two, in the early morning or evening of a hot day, in wading this rushing stream, and casting the fly on its clear waters? The wind blows softly down the narrow valley, and the trees nod from the rocks above you. The noise of the falls makes constant music in your ears. The river hurries past you, and yet it is never gone.

 "On my word, master," says the appreciative Venator, in Walton's Angler, "this is a gallant trout; what shall we do with him?" And honest Piscator, replies: "Marry! e'en eat him to supper; we'll go to my hostess from whence we came; she told me, as I was going out of door, that my brother Peter, [and who is this but Romeyn of Keeseville?] a good angler and a cheerful companion, had sent word he would lodge there tonight, and bring a friend with him. My hostess has two beds, and I know you and I have the best; we'll rejoice with my brother Peter and his friend, tell tales, or sing ballads, or make a catch, or find some harmless sport to content us, and pass away a little time without offence to God or man."