TROUT FISHING. 289 



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lights, go down to the river'at dusk and put up 

 your white moths (throwing them over the shal- 

 lower reaches), what time the grey owl has left 

 Mr. Tennyson's belfry, and is sailing with noise- 

 less wings over the fields, seeking for mice to 

 sustain the five wits with which he is accredited 

 by the poet. And so trout fishing has its 

 romantic side, as other apparently prosaic 

 things are also reported to have ; but the 

 practical division of the art is perhaps acquired 

 with more ease and satisfaction by the majority 

 of people to whom morning, noon, and dusk 

 bring appetite, digestion, and sleep, unem- 

 barrassed by the picturesque suggestions of 

 persons of lymphatic temperaments, who can- 

 not buy a trout from the fishmonger without 

 subjecting themselves to memories of flirtation, 

 and woods, and owls, and other irrelevant im- 

 pertinences. 



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