You shall not be deceived in this book. It is nothing but a handful of rustic variations on the old tune of ” Rest and be thankful,” a record of unconventional travel, a pilgrim’s scrip with a few bits of blue-sky philosophy in it. There is, so far as I know, very little useful information and absolutely no criticism of the universe to be found in this volume. So if you are what Izaak Walton calls “a severe, sour- complexioned man,” you would better carry it back to the bookseller, and get your money gain, if lie will give it to you, and go your way rejoicing after your own melancholy fashion.
But if you care for plain pleasures, and informal company, and friendly observations on men and things, (and a few true fish-stories) then perhaps you may find something here not unworthy your perusal. And so I wish that your winter fire may burn clear and bright while you read these pages; and that the summer days may be fair, and the fish may rise merrily to your fly, whenever you follow one of these little rivers.
I am still not entirely clear what blue-sky philosophy means, even though I think it describes this book well. There is no suffering or sorrow in these pages, nor does the book dive deeply into anything. It is like a stone skipping along the surface of a pond, carrying the reader merrily along to nowhere in particular. Its author and protagonist is Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933): writer of fiction and essays, educator, foreign diplomat, and clergyman. His many volumes, popular in their day, are virtually unread now. Quite a few of them were issued with stunning Art Nouveau covers by Margaret Armstrong (1867-1944), and this has earned them a space in many art museum collections. Alas, in this case, the four dragonflies gracing the cover do not appear in the text.
OK, I admit that I jumped at the excuse to read a work of Van Dyke (one might even say that I angled for it), simply to own a copy of one of Margaret Armstrong’s stunning works from the 1903/4 edition of the book. I had hoped that it would turn out to fit well into the “nature book” category, even though I knew it was ostensibly about fishing. Van Dyke’s literary knowledge is fairly wide-ranging, and he includes quotes by Hamilton Mabie and John Burroughs. Indeed, when suggesting books one might take on a nature outing, he asks, “Are not John Burroughs’ cheerful, kindly essays full of woodland truth and companionship?” His botanical and ornithological knowledge seems fairly robust, though he shows a marked preference for common names over Latin ones. Alas, though, the skipping stone gathers no moss; having named a plant or bird, he rarely pauses long enough to describe its habits. Van Dyke carries the reader along on his journeys to rivers in New England, Quebec, and Europe, often accompanied by his wife, whom he refers to as “Graygown”. He tells a pleasant story about his travels and the fish he catches (or fails to catch) and remarks about the human and natural landscapes he encounters along the way. One of the few brief “nature passages” I found was this one, reporting his ascent of Nuvolau, a mountain in Italy:
Monte Nuvolau is not a perilous mountain. I am quite sure that at my present time of life I should be unwilling to ascend a perilous mountain unless there were something extraordinarily desirable at the top, or remarkably disagreeable at the bottom. Mere risk has lost the attractions which it once had. As the father of a family I felt bound to abstain from going for amusement into any place which a Christian lady might not visit with propriety and safety. Our preparation for Nuvolau, therefore, did not consist of ropes, ice-irons, and axes, but simply of a lunch and two long sticks.
Our way led us, in the early morning, through the clustering houses of Lacedel, up the broad, green slope that faces Cortina on the west, to the beautiful Alp Pocol. Nothing could exceed the pleasure of such a walk in the cool of the day, while the dew still lies on the short, rich grass, and the myriads of flowers are at their brightest and sweetest. The infinite variety and abundance of the blossoms is a continual wonder. They are sown more thickly than the stars in heaven, and the rainbow itself does not show so many tints. Here they are mingled like the threads of some strange embroidery; and there again nature has massed her colours; so that one spot will be all pale blue with innumerable forget-me-nots, or dark blue with gentians; another will blush with the delicate pink of the Santa Lucia or the deeper red of the clover; and another will shine yellow as cloth of gold. Over all this opulence of bloom the larks were soaring and singing. I never heard so many as in the meadows about Cortina. There was always a sweet spray of music sprinkling down out of the sky, where the singers poised un-seen. It was like walking through a shower of melody.
I will close this post with my favorite passage, from a fishing journey by canoe down the Peribonka River in Quebec. This excerpt concludes with Van Dyke pursuing his favorite pastime.
The river leaped, shouting, down its double stairway of granite, rejoicing like a strong man to run a race. The after-glow in the western sky deepened from saffron to violet among the tops of the cedars, and over the cliffs rose the moonlight, paling the heavens but glorifying the earth. There was something large and generous and untrammelled in the scene, recalling one of Walt Whitman’s rhapsodies : —
“Earth of departed sunsets ! Earth of the mountains misty-topped !
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river!”
All the next day we went down with the current. Regiments of black spruce stood in endless files like grenadiers, each tree capped with a thick tuft of matted cones and branches.
Tall white birches leaned out over the stream, Narcissus-like, as if to see their own beauty in the moving mirror. There were touches of colour on the banks, the ragged pink flowers of the Joe-Pye-weed (which always reminds me of a happy, good-natured tramp), and the yellow ear-drops of the jewel-weed, and the intense blue of the closed gentian, that strange flower which, like a reticent heart, never opens to the light. Sometimes the river spread out like a lake, between high bluffs of sand fully a mile apart; and again it divided into many channels, winding cunningly down among the islands as if it were resolved to slip around the next barrier of rock without a fall. There were eight of these huge natural dams in the course of that day’s journey. Sometimes we followed one of the side canals, and made the portage at a distance from the main cataract; and sometimes we ran with the central current to the very brink of the chute, darting aside just in time to escape going over. At the foot of the last fall we made our camp on a curving beach of sand, and spent the rest of the afternoon in fishing.