FISHING AND TALKING. 221 



" Cupid and Psyche in the gorge of the Pemigewasset ! 

 Push on, Effendi, and take a trout out of that pool." 



" My dear fellow, what is out of place in these fishing 

 days of ours? Have we not talked of every subject un- 

 der and many above the skies along the bank of this 

 river ? Don't you remember that day when we were sit- 

 ting on the rock under the bridge, and Doctor was 



with us ? He had worked hard at the trout, had taken 

 fifty, and was drawing his hook artistically in the deep 

 rapid : I thought he was intent on trout. Not he. He 

 came down suddenly on me with a question about Bac- 

 trian coins, of which I knew as much as I knew about the 

 currency of the moon. He could not tell when I asked 

 him what had suggested such a question in connection 

 with trout-fishing ; but I fancy it was by a rapid series of 

 thoughts. He thinks about as much in old languages as 

 in English, and either an old Greek word for a rod or staff 

 (ftaKTrjpia), or the sight of a frog, not uncommon, and the 

 Greek fia-paxoe, had suggested Bactria, and off we start- 

 ed on a numismatic discussion, which carried us from the 

 Ionian shores all along the coasts of Greece, and even to 

 Sicily and Italy." 



Every man seems to find in the gentle art abundant 

 suggestion and opportunity of thinking about his own 

 special hobby, if he have one. I had the evidence of this 

 that day. For ten minutes after we had started again 

 clown the ravine I was sitting again on a rock, looking at 

 the lofty cliffs, and recognizing a resemblance in the 

 scene to a wonderful engraving by Diirer, in many re- 

 spects the finest illustration of thought ever put on paper 

 in the form of a picture. Of course I mean "The Knight 

 and Death." So I lost myself in a trot, "all alone by 

 myself," on one of my hobbies, namely, the early history 



