SPECKLED TROUT 99 



address and insinuation, he divined the exact spot 

 where they lay: if they were not eager he humored 

 them and seemed to steal by them; if they were 

 playful and coquettish he would suit his mood to 

 theirs; if they were frank and sincere he met them 

 half way ; he was so patient and considerate, so en- 

 tirely devoted to pleasing the critical trout, and so 

 successful in his efforts, — surely his heart was upon 

 his hook, and it was a tender, unctuous heart, too, 

 as that of every angler is. How nicely he would 

 measure the distance! how dexterously he would 

 avoid an overhanging limb or bush and drop the line 

 exactly in the right spot ! Of course there was a pulse 

 of feeling and sympathy to the extremity of that 

 line. If your heart is a stone, however, or an empty 

 husk, there is no use to put it upon your hook ; it 

 will not tempt the fish ; the bait must be quick and 

 fresh. Indeed, a certain quality of youth is indis- 

 pensable to the successful angler, a certain unworld- 

 liness and readiness to invest yourself in an enterprise 

 that does n't pay in the current coin. Not only is 

 the angler, like the poet, born and not made, as 

 Walton says, but there is a deal of the poet in him, 

 and he is to be judged no more harshly; he is the 

 victim of his genius: those wild streams, how they 

 haunt him ! he will play truant to dull care, and flee 

 to them ; their waters impart somewhat of their own 

 perpetual youth to him. My grandfather when he 

 was eighty years old would take down his pole as 

 eagerly as any boy, and step off with wonderful elas- 

 ticity toward the beloved streams; it used to try 



