88 MOSTLY ABOUT TROUT 



such crowning disasters as the loss of a big fish 

 in the landing. We do not get the best out of 

 existence if we rush hurriedly from work to 

 strenuous recreation. In our younger days we 

 are most of us inclined to do so. I certainly 

 was, until I read and digested R. L. Stevenson's 

 little maxim that " Extreme busy-ness is a 

 sign of deficient vitality." Before that I had 

 imagined it to be the sign of the opposite, but, 

 thinking it over, we are struck with the idea 

 that " busy " folk only wear themselves out 

 without producing much lasting result. We get 

 some help on this point from Charles Kingsley, 

 another keen chalk-stream fisher, but not of 

 the dry-fly persuasion. I suppose that most of 

 us know our Water-Babies, and have learned 

 from Mother Carey, as little Tom did, the great 

 secret. As she got through so much construc- 

 tive work, he thought that she must be too 

 busy to talk to him" I am not going to trouble 

 myself to make things, my little dear; I sit 

 here and make them make themselves." 

 Kingsley, by the way, got that wisdom from 

 the East, but to follow up the origin of the tale 

 would be too much of a digression. 



The moral for the fly-fisher, of course, is to 

 study Nature and apply her laws to his purpose, 

 from those affecting the waywardness of trout 



