4 A NGL ER S' E VENINGS. 



sits and thinks, — and thinks ; and next, at early morn, 

 he wakes, with form and mind refreshed, and hopeful 

 — nay, his hopes are certainties. Has he not, either 

 dreaming or awake, found reasons for the of yester- 

 day ? (Failure he will not call it, he knows not such a 

 word — it is not British enough; he cannot give it a name, 

 — nor can I, — so let it pass.) Reasons he has found, or 

 or thinks he has; what matters it ? His mind is active, 

 — he is content to try again, and so he does, and wins ; 

 and wins at many things in after-life — yet even when he 

 wins not, he is content, for he can " try again." 



But there are fishermen whose pleasure rests only in 

 success, and they have a mighty pleasant way of de- 

 scribing the large baskets they have filled, or the larger 

 fish they have missed basketing. Brothers, we wish 

 them well, — we wish them well. Your President hath 

 met them at times in his fifty years' wandering, and hath 

 now and then been mystified, upon being shewn most 

 improbable flies, with undamped feathers, most innocent 

 of guile, and newly tied on line. He thought it was not 

 like Old Izaak, who would " with us have shared his fish, 

 and shewn the flies that caught them." 



Every true fisherman has learned, or found out, some 

 speciality due either to his style of fishing, or the district 

 to which he has devoted most of his time ; and rarely is 

 such an one found to hide his knowledge, — rather does 

 he burden you with the tale of his experience, much of 

 which is necessarily your own. 



Reciprocity is especially Waltonian, and often charms 

 away troubles and disputes. The writer has known 



