4 SALMON FISHING 



is in the universe less than as a group of boroughs 

 in this island. You take an untruth for granted 

 when you speak of hair-splitting as if the phrase 

 proved something. Nature has no relevant traffic 

 in sizes. Size is no more than a convenient delusion 

 of the practical human mind. It fits in usefully 

 with the logic of those who, dealing with tempor- 

 alities, such as architecture and politics, need to be 

 empirically exact; but it has nothing to do with 

 Nature. Reason has ; but reason is not logic. 

 Logic the most precise may be misleading ; but 

 reason, never. Reason is the sensitised imagination 

 in conscious contact with external nature, receiving 

 impressions and pondering them. Art is the 

 reproduction of these impressions in symbols 

 colours and forms, words and sounds. Logic ! Art, 

 being a mirage of Nature, Nature reflected in the 

 wondering human mind, has none of it. Reason ? 

 That is the beginning and the end of Art ! Why ? 

 Because Nature, while never logical, is always, and 

 supremely, rational." 



There is comfort in recalling this conversation. 

 It is good to feel assured that the spirit of the 

 sportsman is in one respect identical with that of the 

 supreme rationalist, the poet. The sportsman has 

 the poet's illogicality ; he has also the poet's vindica- 

 tion. Unquestionably the best of all pursuits by 

 flood or field is that in which he chances to be 

 engaged. " But why," some one may ask, " should 

 there be any comparison at all?" It would have 

 been well to have on this point an opinion of counsel, 



