A FAEEWELL WORD. 463 



the fly-table, never came, nor ever will come to us by any road than that 

 of practice. And yet the result of devotion is to produce, for one and all 

 alike, a well-marked type of character entirely different from that 

 developed by the love of any other sport or pastime. As to the element 

 of luck well, there is some luck in every branch of sport ; and though 

 absence of skill and want of method are too often fitting substitutes for 

 " bad luck," it is not good for our too enslaved votaries to persevere 

 wholly apart from it. Bad luck invariably precedes good luck, and it is 

 better it should go first than last. A word may be said of chance. 

 Salmon fishing abounds with chances, as none have known better cr 

 avowed more freely than its greatest masters. The mere accidental tug 

 of a Salmon, for instance, symbolises the recognition of the fact. Then 

 with regard to blunders not uncommonly set down as " accidents "- 

 brought about by want of judgment, by any and every conceivable way 

 inclusive of that modest contempt for apparently sound advice one is 

 naturally inclined to the belief that men who are invariably unlucky are 

 wanting in those very qualities that command success. 



But while recalling to mind those many friendships made and 

 thinking of all these things, it was not likely that, having the interests 

 of our juniors at heart, I should pass over unnoticed the many friendships 

 broken by the " busybodies." The trouble occasionally brought about by 

 a deal of unsolicited advice, usually given with intense emphasis to 

 beginners, by people hardly qualified to express an opinion at all, led me, 

 against my will, to point out in these pages the " badge " to know them 

 by. And I should like to wind up by saying, with equal honesty of 

 intention, that few men have done more harm to the rising generation of 

 Anglers than those who are commonly thought to do the least. If, 

 however, one final suggestion may be made, it would probably flow best 

 in the following words of Seneca : " LET NO MAN PRESUME TO GIVE 



ADVICE TO OTHERS, THAT HAS NOT FIRST GIVEN GOOD COUNSEL TO 

 HIMSELF." 



