SALMON-FISHING. 



It is the unknown which constitutes the main charm 

 and delight of every adult human creature's life from 

 very childhood ; which life from the beginning to 

 the end is, I maintain, one continued gamble. Un- 

 certainty is the salt of existence. I once emptied 

 a large fish-pond, which, from my youth up, I had 

 held in supreme veneration and angled in with awe, 

 lest some of the monsters with which it was supposed 

 to abound, especially one ferocious and gigantic pike, 

 which a six-foot gamekeeper gravely asserted to be 

 as big as himself, and to have consumed endless 

 broods of young ducks, should encounter me un- 

 awares, and the result was a great haul of small 

 and medium sized fish of all kinds, a few obese 

 fat-headed carp, and the conspicuous absence of 

 the monster pike. 



