io6 LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES 



metropolitan angling clubs if he so violated pisca- 

 torial law as to allow himself to be caught under such 

 conditions, and it is but charity to suppose that these 

 legally sizable but morally undersized fish were giddy 

 youths, upon whom the example of the veterans, pois- 

 ing themselves steelproof in the current, yet virtue- 

 proof against temptation, was sadly thrown away. 



Fish or no fish, it is, nevertheless, worth something 

 to stand awhile at the head of the weir and indulge in 

 those soothing reveries which a running stream pro- 

 vokes. You cross the lock, and by the permission of 

 the lockkeeper (whose good temper is sorely tried these 

 holiday times by the incessant passage of pleasure 

 boats, bound for Surley, and maybe Monkey Island) 

 pass over the pretty island, and enter upon the plank- 

 way which communicates with the further bank. The 

 weir is broad, and its construction such that the heavy 

 body of water from above stampedes through at your 

 feet in magnificent force. Shout at your topmost pitch 

 of voice if you would carry on a conversation with 

 the roar of the swirl in the listener's ears. No fewer 

 than seventeen distinct floods are pouring between the 

 beams with never two escaping alike. As different are 

 they as the current of our individual lives ; now quietly 

 gliding in, but not off, the racket on either side ; now 

 confidently asserting themselves by a semi-turbulent 

 merriness ; now all babble and bubble and surface ; 

 now dark, deep, and masterful through hidden force 

 under a calm countenance ; now tearing, and dashing, 

 and running away with quickly scattered impulse. 



Yonder, the sleeping island o'ershadowed by trees 

 on the left, and the high indented bank on the right, 

 seem to gather these diverse streams within their arms 

 and reduce them to something like uniformity of pur- 

 pose. And then, looking up and around from the 



