104 ON TROUTING WITH THE FLY. 



rapids; no more it strives with frantic fling or wily 

 plunge, to disengage the hook. It has lost all heart 

 almost all energy. The fins, paralysed and powerless, 

 are unable for their task. So far from regulating its 

 movements, they cannot even sustain the balance of 

 the fish. Helpless and hopeless it is drawn ashore, 

 upturning, in the act of submission, its starred and 

 gleamy flanks. The countenance of the captor his 

 movements, (they are those which the soul dictates), are 

 all joyous and self-congratulatory. But the emotion, 

 strongly depicted though it be, is short-lived. It gives 

 way successively to the feelings of admiration and pity 

 of admiration, as excited on contemplating the 

 almost incomparable beauty of the captive, its breadth 

 and depth, the harmony of its proportions, as well as 

 the richness and variety of its colours of pity, as 

 called forth in accordance with our nature, an uncon- 

 scious, uncontrollable emotion, which operates with 

 subduing effect on the triumph of the moment. 



And now, in their turn, content and thankfulness 

 reign in the heart and develope themselves on the coun- 

 tenance of the angler ; now haply he is impressed with 

 feelings of adoring solemnity stirred up by some scene 

 of unlooked-for grandeur, or the transit of some sublime 

 phenomenon. I say nothing of the feelings of disap- 

 pointment, anger, envy, and jealousy, which sometimes 

 find their way into the bosom, and are pourtrayed 

 on the features even of the worthiest and best-tem- 

 pered of our craft. Too naturally they spring up and 

 blend themselves with our better nature ; yet well it 

 is that they take no hold on the heart, scorching it 

 may be true, but not consuming its day of happiness. 



Hence it is, from the very variety of emotions which 

 successively occupy the mind, from their blendings and 



