DRY FLY FISHING 47 



are discussed and decided there. All that follows 

 is written without any thought of denying or 

 minimising the attraction of these things for 

 men's minds ; but there is an aspect of London 

 which is inevitable and becomes most oppressive 

 in hot June days. There is the aggressive stiff- 

 ness of the buildings, the brutal hardness of the 

 pavement, the smell of the streets festering in the 

 sun, the glare of the light all day striking upon 

 hard substances, and the stuffiness of the heat 

 from which there is no relief at night for no 

 coolness comes with the evening air, and bedroom 

 windows seem to open into ovens ; add to these 

 hardships what is worse than all, the sense of 

 being deprived of the country at this time and 

 shut off from it. Perhaps you own a distant 

 garden, which you know by heart, and from which 

 occasionally leaves and flowers are sent to you in 

 London ; you unpack these and spread them out 

 and look at them, spelling out from them and 

 recalling to memory what the garden is like at 

 this time. There were the young beech leaves 

 and the sprays of double flowering cherry in 

 May, and now there come the first out-of- 

 door roses and the first of other things, perhaps 



