286 FISHING WITH THE FLY. 



grazing in a woodland pasture, comes at noonday to the 

 brook to drink and then calmly and not without a cer- 

 tain ungainly majesty of movement, crosses the deep 

 pool and climbs the steep bank on the other side, by no 

 apparent motive urged save of her own sweet will, she 

 always looks refreshed and filled in some sort with the 

 stolid bovine expression of great contentment. Mark 

 how different it all is when the same cow crosses the 

 same brook driven by the barefooted urchin with a gad 

 and shrill cries and a possible small dog in the back- 

 ground. How wearily and breathlessly she wades, and 

 with what distressful pantings she climbs, and how un- 

 happy and enduring and long-suffering she appears, as 

 you watch her shuffle away down the cow-path home- 

 ward ! It's the Must that hurts. It's the barefooted 

 urchin Necessity with his infernal gad Ambition and his 

 ugly little cur dog Want, always chasing and shouting 

 after one, that makes it so tiresome to cross the stream. 



" Then, too, as to the mind. Shall not one gain better 

 intellectual growth when beyond the reach of the im- 

 perial ukase of daily custom which fixes the mind upon 

 and chains the tongue to some leading event of the 

 passing hour ? 



"In swift and endless succession come foul murders, 

 robberies, revolutions, sickening disasters, nameless 

 crimes, and all the long list of events, and are. as so 

 many manacles upon the mind. 



" I hate Events. They bore me. All except taking 

 a pound trout. 



