CLEAR WATERS 



argued, in effect should be without susceptibility to 

 any of nature's accessories. He should be quite in- 

 different to * atmosphere,' and assuredly have no 

 poetry in his soul. He should have no thought, no 

 eyes for anything beyond the exact science of the job 

 he was out for, and the surface of the river. He should, 

 in short, be able thoroughly to convince himself that 

 he is as happy fishing all day between a gasometer and 

 a paper mill as among the Cheviots or the Welsh 

 mountains. Nay, more so, for here no possible out- 

 side distractions can disturb the dry purity of his 

 aim. His musings must on no account stray beyond 

 the trout he is after, or the insect life which is the 

 medium of its ensnaring. Only the visible trout is 

 lawful prey, and in the inevitable intervals when no 

 rise is on his thoughts must be steadily concentrated 

 on the mysteries of sub-imagos, Ephemeridae, Trichop- 

 tera, PerHdae, Sialidae, Notonectidae, and the rest of 

 the paralysing glossary in which the purist seems posi- 

 tively to revel. Some of them are common enough 

 things, but infinitely glorified by these tremendous 

 names before which the ordinary angler, crushed and 

 mystified, hides his head in self-abasement and hurries 

 away to breathe again the freer air of the mountain 

 and the wild. Here in time he may recover his self- 

 esteem and get back to the plain fact that there are 

 thousands upon thousands of lifelong trout-fishers and 

 hundreds of the most accomplished ones to whom 

 these things are so much Sanskrit, and doubtless always 

 will be until trout and time shall be no more. He 

 consoles himself also with the reflection that the 

 Httle kingdom held in bondage by this portentous 

 262 



