I GO A- FISHING 



tell the truth, scarcely a fisherman's bent as 

 you will suggest, I am an ill fisherman. I would 

 not decoy some ardent lover of rod and line to 

 read these inconsequent lines, thinking I was 

 piscatorial artist, or that I had fast friendship 

 * with our good friend, quaint and gentle, Ike 

 Walton. We are bare acquaintances. I met 

 him once, once only, along the river Dove tak- 

 '"***"" i n g a grayling from his hook, and so not seeing 



me, for so true a fisherman was always more 

 engrossed with fish than men (nor do I blame 



him); and I was only wandering along the stream watching the shadows 

 on the quiet water and the pools where sunlight came and staid as taking 

 a whole day of holiday. No, I know as little about fishing as about 

 botany. I know not what sort of bait catches what sort of fish. I 

 seldom get a nibble, and much more rarely get a fish, though Provi- 

 dence knows I wish the fish knew how safe it is to intrust themselves to 

 my hook, for I throw back into the stream, with scant reluctance, the 

 fish I catch. I am much more pious and tender-hearted than your piety- 

 professing fisherman, who, while he talks gently of the "gentle art," kills 

 whom he surprises, like any other bandit, and lays snares like an assas- 

 sin, and fresh in iniquity says his prayers like a murderer making the 

 sign of the cross above the corpse he has made. No, I never knew 

 enough, or so little, I know not which, as to succeed in catching fish, 

 yet I say boldly, though as I hope with modesty, that I can throw a line 

 into the water and let it stay there with a degree of resolution worthy of 

 a French cavalier of the reign of Louis the Saint. To state the facts 

 irankly, as becometh a Christian, I, having had many friends who were 



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