WHY PETER WENT A-FISHING. 203 



mind and body, each gratifies the most refined taste, 

 each Becomes a passion unless the pursuer guard his 

 enthusiasm and moderate his desire. 



***** * 



To you, my friend, who know nothing of the gentle 

 and purifying association of the angler's life, these may 

 seem strange notions to some, indeed, they may even 

 sound profane. But the angler for whom I write will 

 not so think them, nor may I, who, thinking these same 

 thoughts, have cast my line on the sea of Galilee, and 

 taken the descendants of old fish in the swift waters 

 of the Jordan. 



Trout fishing is employment for all men, of all minds. 

 It tends to dreamy life, and it leads to much thought 

 and reflection. I do not know in any book or story of 

 modern times a more touching and exquisite scene than 

 that which Mrs. Gordon gives in her admirable biogra- 

 phy of her father, the leonine Christopher North, when 

 the feeble old man waved his rod for the last time over 

 the Dochart, where he had taken trout from his boy- 

 hood. Shall we ever look upon his like again ? He 

 was a giant among men of intellectual greatness. Of all 

 anglers since apostolic days, he was the greatest ; and 

 there is no angler who does not look to him with 

 veneration and love, while the English language will 

 forever possess higher value that he has lived and 

 written. It would be thought very strange were one to 

 say that Wilson would never have been half the man he 

 was were he not an angler. But he would have said so 



