20 



A SCOTTISH FLY-FISHER 



its possession the more firmly it is withheld from him. 

 Pleasure is not to be compelled ; it flees direct pursuit. 

 As a provision against unhappiness in age, angling 

 rivals whist. The superannuated angler, it is true, 

 will not find in it as in that misnamed " refuse for 



o 



the intellectually destitute," 

 active employment for the 

 remnant of his mind, but it 

 provides him with a fund of 

 pleasant recollections which 

 help to brighten his declin- 

 ing days. Though, en- 

 feebled by years, he can 

 no longer wield the rod, he 

 may wander in thought by 

 the still loved stream, and enjoy again in all their first 

 intensity the pleasures of the past. Emotions of pain, 

 it has been mercifully ordained, are in their nature 

 evanescent. We remember that we suffered ; the 

 suffering itself can never be recalled. Time has its 

 atmosphere as well as space. In time, as in space, 

 distance throws a kindly veil over everything dis- 

 pleasing : smoothing away all asperities ; concealing all 

 offences ; substituting beauty for ugliness. Calamities 

 which threatened to destroy his earthly peace, the aged 



