Taken from Fishing with a Fly by Bliss Perry, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in May, 1925.
The setting, norms and language may be far removed a century later but the sentiments still resonate and are hopefully valid.
“There is one aspect of this reversion to primitivism, however, which is very real, and of inestimable value to sedentary gentlemen. A fishing trip somehow taps in them unexpected reservoirs of physical and moral energy. They may habitually put on rubbers when they walk to the post office in damp weather; they consult throat specialists; they seriously consider being examined by a life-extension institute. And here they are suddenly swinging off the Winnipeg Pullman at midnight at a flag station, with duffle bag, rod case, and rifle, to be greeted taciturnly by guides they have never seen but who will know them in a week better than they know themselves. They will forget all about their rubbers and their throats and the admonition of their wives.
They will wade waist-deep in icy water and crouch for hours under dripping hemlocks.At home they expect a “red-cap” to carry their suitcase and a chauffeur to open the door of their car; but here they cheerfully tote a bushel of potatoes over a hard portage if the guide has all he can do with the canoe. They can eat anything, drink anything, smoke anything – except the native Canadian tobacco! – and crawl at night into a dirty sleeping bag as if it were the couch of an emperor. A life-extension institute? Did not Izaak Walton live to be ninety, and did not Henry M’s uncle, when the ice went out of the Miramichi below Boisetown in the spring of 1922, celebrate his hundredth birthday by casting the whole day for black salmon? Nonsense! If the rod and wheel are working well, and the fly book is wisely filled, and the sky a bit overcast, and there is just enough ripple on the water, your life-extension institute is already functioning!”
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