124 FLY-FISHING 



sheets of flies are spread before me; so too do the seem- 

 ingly indispensable sizes of each pattern, and at last I 

 emerge, exhausted by the struggle of selection, alarmed at 

 the amount of my purchase, and yet uneasy for fear it should 

 not be large enough, and I have omitted the one thing needful 

 after all.' 



Which of us does not recognise our own feelings 

 under similar circumstances ? 



In this agreeable way does Sir Edward Grey dis- 

 course, discursive but never irrelevant, and never dull. 

 His book is as little of a dry treatise as can be, and (it 

 will scarcely be credited) I have perused it from title 

 to colophon without once coming upon an allusion to 

 the 'immortal Izaak.' Neither is Sir Edward a 

 butcher. There is a vast deal that contributes to his 

 enjoyment of a day's fishing besides the weight of his 

 basket. Thus in Hampshire : 



' Every sense is alert and excited, every scent and every- 

 thing seen or heard is noted with delight. You are grateful 

 for the grass on which you walk, even for the soft country 

 dust about your feet. 



Again, in the Highlands : 



'There come times when the angler, who wanders alone 

 after sea trout down glens and over moors, has a sense of 

 physical energy and strength beyond all his experience in 

 ordinary life. . . . The pure act of breathing at such times 

 seems glorious. People talk of being a child of Nature, and 

 moments such as these are the times when it is possible to 

 feel so ; to know the full joy of animal life, to desire nothing 

 beyond. There are times when I have stood still for joy of 

 it all, on my way through the wild freedom of a Highland 



