for the play of his powers. The hook is in the water. I have done my 

 part and done it well. I will leave results to the fish ; so that I (with 

 that sagacity which marks my proceedings) take my book from my 

 pocket I have brought it for such occasion. If the fish are idle I must 

 not emulate their example. I will read my friend Stephen Phillips. 

 His pastorals shall be my chore. Now when I have a book which, to 

 change my friend Milton's phrase, in harmony with my environment (I 

 use that word not as knowing its meaning, but because I have seen it in 

 print and once heard it mentioned by a speaker, now sick with the 

 grippe a book is the solace of those tardy hours in which a fisherman 

 awaits the desultory humors of the fish); "Having a book" (quoted 

 from my preceding remarks), I am well pleased and go on with my 



ALONG THE STREAM 



fishing. We shall get on well to-day. However inattentive to their 

 duty the fish are, I will not be inattentive to mine. I will read a spell. 

 My friend William Wadsworth was a fisher of my sort he walked 

 along the streams, loved them and dreamed of them ; and I will in defer- 

 ence to his good taste read him betimes. Now fishing seems a levity. 

 I leave the fish to their own devices. The cork may bob or sink for 

 all of me. I do not care. Virtue is its own reward. I have baited the 

 hook and have placed it in the watery element (whatever that is). Can 

 any ethical code demand more ? To do more would be a work of 

 supererogation, and I always hold that works of supererogation are void. 

 I will now rest until the sun gets in my eyes and the perspiration (peri- 

 phrasis for sweat), starts from my face, whereupon with a fine courtesy 

 worthy of Chesterfield I will move out of the sun's way. If I am not a 

 gentleman I am nothing, though I desire to make no boast. 



87 



