10 TROUT FISHING 



I remember that day also, because some years 

 later I sat down to immortalise it in what I con- 

 sidered prose, and because to my intense pride the 



result was actually published by , but I will not 



give the journal away for doing a kindness to me. 

 I am sure the article must have been full of " spotted 

 beauties," and " finny denizens," and " old Sol," and 

 things of that kind. It should have joined my 

 other early efforts in the waste-paper basket or the 

 fire. But, under Providence, I believe it set me on 

 the business of writing instead of some useful 

 occupation, such as studying torts and turbary, 

 whereby men rise to affluence and office. 



I believe, also, that the day which it purported 

 to describe made me for ever a lover of small streams 

 rather than big ones, of odd corners rather than the 

 open river. I love to find a trout cruising about 

 with his nose just outside the scum at a hatch, I 

 glory in a fish which lies with his head pointed the 

 wrong way by reason of some back- wash, and if it 

 is at any time possible to pursue a by-stream instead 

 of the main river I pursue it. There is the additional 

 reason that I think the fish are easier to catch, and 

 sometimes rather bigger, in the carriers, but there is 

 a genuine affection for insignificance which moves 

 me too. 



Nearly forty years of angling give a man a host of 

 memories, and I remember many tiny streams in 



