THE ANGLER'S TEMPER 43 



and commentary, but here they would be out of place, 

 and the subject can only be considered on broad lines. 

 Illustration, too, must of necessity be somewhat 

 limited, since one only possesses one temper, and 

 observation of other people's tempers is hampered by 

 their extreme reticence concerning the same. Very 

 rarely shall you hear a brother angler confess that he 

 is there and then without his temper. Afterwards 

 perhaps he will let fall a casual remark to the effect 

 that he momentarily lost patience with the barbed wire, 

 and if you are wise you will let it go at that. There 

 is no need to recapitulate the things you heard him 

 say it would not be kind ; and, besides, next time it 

 may be your turn to need tactful treatment. Barbed 

 wire is no respecter of persons. 



It has seemed to me sometimes that there is a 

 decided difference between loss of temper and another 

 frame of mind which is closely allied to it and might 

 be mistaken for it despair. The first is commonly 

 the result of small woes, the second of grave mis- 

 fortunes. Possibly by a cumulative process a succes- 

 sion of small woes may amount to grave misfortunes, 

 in which case loss of temper may end in the more 

 dignified emotion. But I am not sure as to this ; Fate 

 has a way of dealing the little blows and big ones with 

 different hands, and of using one hand to-day and the 

 other to-morrow. On the day of small woes nothing 

 of any magnitude happens at all indeed, the fact 

 amounts to another little woe all by itself; on the 

 other day you get catastrophes one after the other, any 

 one of which would be enough to stagger you ; you are 

 overwhelmed with tribulation. Yet such a day is the 



