Let us be thankful for health and competence, and, above all, for a quiet conscience.

I have laid aside business, and gone a'fishing.

Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery element were made for wise men to contemplate, and fools to pass by without consideration.

Those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art.

Let us not repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound with riches, when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle that they dog him with weary days and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly.

Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.

God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.