PHILOSOPHIES OF A FISHERMAN 



FISHERMEN are lucky folk in these days. 

 Their standard is not a money standard. 

 They envy not, as a master of their art once 

 said, those who wear better clothes than they 

 do, or those who have better food or bigger 

 houses ; they envy him, and him only, who 

 catches more fish than they do. Really keen 

 fishermen are seldom rich. For myself, I pity 

 affluent youths, with a love of fishing in their 

 souls, who catch their first trout before they 

 are ten, their first salmon in their early 'teens, 

 and their first big trout with a dry-fly the 

 most difficult feat of all before they are twenty. 

 Success has come to them too young, and its 

 joy depends so much upon the work that leads 

 up to it, the infinite labour, the many blank 

 days, the moments of despair, and all the 

 difficulties to be overcome. I once knew a 

 very wealthy man who had kept his sense of 

 proportion true and well-balanced. He under- 



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