CLEAR WATERS 



nowadays made very, very easy. The novus homo in 

 the country takes it up violently and is thoroughly 

 pleased with himself for so doing, which latter attitude 

 when you come to think of it is rather absurd. Or 

 another sort of man was automatically entered to it 

 as a boy with all the machinery to hand, but without 

 any particular initiative on his own part. Still more, 

 the individuals who hunt because they really like it 

 for itself, no knowledgeable person would ever venture 

 to assert are anything but a minority, while those 

 who really understand the craft are a still smaller one. 

 The accessories of the chase include at least half a dozen 

 distinct attractions, some harmless, others vulnerable 

 and irresistible to the cynic. Even salmon-fishing is 

 not free from suspicion, as it is one of the sports ac- 

 counted worthy of a millionaire ; while a lady of 

 fashion, who with or without the gillie's help has some 

 measure of success, stands more than a good chance 

 of figuring with her biggest fish in the society or illus- 

 trated papers, some of which seem almost to exist for 

 such purposes. But trouting profits no one who is 

 not fond of it, and is, I think, really free from all the 

 meretricious enthusiasm and make-believe that hangs 

 on to the skirts of other sports in Great Britain alone, 

 I fancy, of all countries. Not that this is to be de- 

 precated for a moment. The good no doubt far out- 

 weighs the humbug, though there is a great deal of 

 both, and it is about trouting and its environment 

 that I propose to gossip in this little book. 



How the microbe came to be within me I cannot 

 imagine. My paternal forbears with all their rami- 

 fications were scholars or theologians or both. On the 



