70 AN ANGLER AT LARGE 



partial gusto a waltz or a hymn. These are the 

 instruments of the countryside. Or a Flower 

 Show may provide a brass band all the afternoon. 

 And I have endured fiddling. This surely ex- 

 hausts the list. Until I heard the harp thus, I 

 denied the right of human beings to make music 

 in chalk valleys. Let them keep to those rivers 

 where men in starched collars punt girls under 

 Japanese umbrellas. It does not matter to me 

 that on such waters more streets than streams 

 the banjo and the concertina, the mandolin, the 

 cornet thump, wheeze, twang, and blare. I am not 

 there. In this valley, however, I have always 

 resented the intrusions of music until now. 



Whether the harp is really wilder than other 

 instruments I cannot say. That it is this alleged 

 savagery which renders it pleasing to my ear in 

 this place I do not think. It may be so, but 1 

 have a suspicion that a 'cello or a flute, or a sack- 

 but for that matter, under the same conditions, 

 would be to me similarly agreeable. For when 

 the harp sounds it sings to me of matters which 

 lie entirely outside the scope of aesthetics. It is 

 a new voice in the valley, and it carries messages 

 to me which the old never reported. Perhaps to 

 the wooing strains of Gounod's Serenade I seek to 

 lure that four-pound trout which persists within 

 the Island glide. Or, again, when I have risen 



