7 



argument is something which can be caught and 

 held down and strapped into sentences, but after 

 reading an account of a day's fishing, it is con- 

 tinually borne in upon one that, when all has 

 been said, the half has not been told ; it is not 

 because there is really nothing to tell, as some 

 cynical and unsympathetic mind may suppose; 

 rather, I think it is because of the nature of joy. 

 Feelings of delight come unsought and without 

 effort when they are present they are every- 

 where about and in us like an atmosphere ; when 

 they are past it is almost as impossible to give an 

 account of them as it is of " last year's clouds," 

 and the attempt to analyse and reconstruct the 

 sense of joy that has been and may be again, 

 seems to result in rows of dead words. 



It is worth while to consider some of the 

 different ways in which authors of repute have 

 written about angling. Walton, of course, stands 

 first ; his book has become a classic, and has 

 been read and remembered now long enough 

 for us to be sure that it will remain so. This, 

 no doubt, is due to his literary skill, and to 

 that distinguished something called style, which 

 Walton had, and without which no book lives 



