OF AN ESSENTIAL FALSITY 217 



ful exponent may carry away from the stream 

 he bestows upon the deserving poor or distributes 

 as graceful compliments by post among his last 

 winter's hostesses. It is fashionable to despise the 

 flesh of trouts. "After," your more pernicious 

 kind of angler will say, " I have weighed my fish, 

 or grassed him, or fairly hooked him, or risen him " 



his choice among these moments depending on 

 the stage of refinement to which he has advanced 



" I have no further interest in him. As for 

 eating him, Heaven forbid ! Give me a cod steak 

 and oyster sauce." 



Like so much of what is said nowadays, this 

 kind of talk is extremely artificial. It is born of 

 long purses and full stomachs. Civilisation is 

 made up of such things. We have to get to grips 

 with nature to discover their essential falsity. All 

 this clothing of sportsmanship, entomology, phren- 

 ology, contemplativeness, gentleness, and even 

 humour, in which we have learned to dress up 

 fishing cannot serve to conceal from the penetra- 

 ting eye the original simple, sincere attempt of 

 the carnivorous animal to fill his belly. 



My wife appeared with a white face, one hand 

 flung forth despairingly, a telegram clutched in it. 

 " Those men," she said, meaning Cha vender and 

 Wickham, whom again we expected, "will be 

 here at half-past six not half-past nine, as they 



