INTRODUCTORY 



IN the course of a very kindly, and too flattering, 

 notice of a little book of mine which appeared a 

 few years ago, a reviewer said something which made 

 me think. He pointed out the possibility of readers 

 saying to themselves, " This person catches too many 

 fish." And certainly, if I consider it honestly, there 

 was about that volume a certain smugness ; in nearly 

 all its chapters fish were slain, and weighed, and 

 reckoned up, and made the object of fat complacency. 

 The result was, perhaps, a suggestion, implied if not 

 made in so many words, that the world always went 

 very well indeed for the volume's author, that for every 

 morning on which he went light-hearted to the stream 

 there was an evening on which he staggered back 

 heavy-basketed to his lodging. 



In this new volume, if any readers shall do me the 

 honour to occupy themselves with it, they will find, as 

 I hope, a better balanced picture of the contemplative 

 man's recreation. There are fish in it, perhaps an 

 undue number for whose presence I would apologize 

 with a submission that I could not keep them out : 



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