A VOYAGE IN THE DARK 



Once I enjoyed an exaltation of spirit 

 only to suffer humiliation. There was 

 a tug at the hooks, so heavy that my 

 first thought was of a snag, and I was 

 on the point of calling out to my friend 

 to stop rowing. Then there was a 

 slight yielding, and the tremor that tells 

 unmistakably of a fish. " Now," said I, 

 with my heart but a little way back of 

 my teeth, " I am fast to something like 

 a fish, but I shall never be able to boat 

 him. He is too big to lift out with 

 the hooks, and I can't see to get him by 

 the gills, and so I shall lose him." As 

 he came in slowly, stubbornly fighting 

 against every shortening inch of line, I 

 almost wished he had not been hooked 

 at all only to be lost at last. When, 

 after a time, my fish was hauled near 

 the boat and in sight of my companions, 

 my catch proved to be no monster, but 

 a pickerel of very ordinary size hooked 

 by the belly, and so my hopes and fears 

 vanished together. 



I think distances are magnified to the 

 blind, for it seemed twice as far as it did 

 of old from the East Slang to the South 

 123 



