2 FISHING WITH THE FLY. 



inal inspiration, and present knowledge the hereditary 

 outcome of ancient germs. 



All down the ages echo has answered echo, and the 

 sounding forks have transmitted orally the accented 

 annals wherever the lordly salmon swims. 



Now, hold rhapsody, and let us look to the river ! 

 Do you mark the regal presence in yonder glinting 

 pool, upon which the sun flashes with an intensity 

 which reveals the smallest pebble on the bottom ? 

 Nay ? You cannot see that salmon, just there at the 

 curl of the rapid ? Nor his knightly retinue drawn up 

 there abreast just behind him in supporting position ? 

 Then, my friend, you are indeed a novice on the river, 

 and the refraction of the solar rays upon its surface 

 blinds your unaccustomed eyes. "Well, they do cer- 

 tainly look but shadows in the quiet pool, so motionless 

 and inanimate, or but counterfeiting the swaying of the 

 pensile rock-weeds of the middle stream. "What com- 

 fortable satisfaction or foreboding premonitions do you 

 imagine possess the noble lord while he is taking his 

 recuperative rest in the middle chamber, after passing 

 from his matriculation in the sea? Faith! you can 

 almost read his emotions in the slow pulsations of his 

 pectoral fins, and the inflection of his throbbing tail ! 

 Perhaps he shrinks from the barricade of rock and foam 

 before him ; or hesitates to essay the royal arch above 

 the gorge, which reflects in prismatic hues of emblem- 

 atic glory the mist and mysteries of the unattempted 

 passage. 



