OF DEATH 287 



how to use it. And it might blow my hand off. 

 And how should I fish then ? 



I do not know that I want to fish any more. 

 As one grows older one gets a new way of looking 

 at things. Youth has a distorted vision. For 

 Turkish Delight at one time I would have 

 bartered my soul. To-day it nauseates me. So 

 with angling. Years ago I would, if I could, 

 have killed trout all day, and under any weight 

 of them staggered home rejoicing ; the greater 

 the weight, the louder my rejoicing. In those 

 days my joy was clouded by no misgivings ; no 

 compunction dulled my appetite for slaughter. 

 I was wholly callous to any destruction I had 

 wrought. Those bright, dead bodies loaded my 



back only. My soul did I have a soul then ? 



Who knows ? But had 1 succeeded in bartering 

 it for Turkish Delight, the other party to the 

 transaction would infallibly have been swindled 

 however little of his wares he had yielded. Yes, 

 I gloried in butchery. 



And to-day ? Well, lately I have had doubts. 

 They have always been put sternly away, for the 

 angling habit strikes deep roots, and it is foolish to 

 examine settled convictions. Only misery can 

 come of it. And, until the last year or two, my 

 conviction that trout exist for anglers to catch has 

 been founded on the rock. But now I find that it 



