ijo LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES 



men in all grades of sport, as in all grades of work, to 

 whom the cards invariably fall awry, and the worst of 

 the case is that there is only one piece of advice to 

 tender forswear the cards, or grin and bear. The 

 angler ought to hold by the latter clause. The retriev- 

 ing chances that may happen ; the many useful objects 

 turned up even when the philosopher's stone is never 

 reached ; the assets to the right if there are deficits 

 to the left these may be philosophically set off in the 

 general account. 



How many acquaintances, are there not, who burden 

 themselves by over much comfort, or, what comes to 

 the same thing from my point of view, with too much 

 fuss and fad as to their impedimenta ? Some anglers 

 whom I meet really never appear to be happy unless 

 staggering along like Issachar " couching down between 

 two burdens." Half of the gear is mere ballast, never 

 produced for actual service from one year's end to the 

 other, but always carried with patience most instruc- 

 tive to behold. Not a month since I remonstrated 

 with a comrade upon the unnecessary exertion he was 

 undergoing from the mere weight of his useless baggage. 

 He said he preferred it ; he considered that he was 

 not properly equipped without that enormous sack 

 big as that which the " Pilgrim's Progress " man 

 shuffled off when he scrambled out on the right side of 

 the Slough of Despond. I think he regarded the trip 

 to the river though we drove comfortably to it, and 

 drove home again the same evening as a serious ex- 

 pedition into unknown wilds, and was buoyed up 

 throughout with the fancy that he ranked with the 

 eminent explorers who go forth with their lives in their 

 hands. 



Once upon a time I habitually made a toil of pleasure 

 in much the same way, scorning assistance, deem- 



