PSYCHOLOGICAL 199 



butt to tip, and to be perfectly balanced. That is why 

 the modern light rod has come to stay. The angler who 

 has once handled a perfect example perfectly married to a 

 line of appropriate weight and taper, and has had time to 

 appreciate the gain in precision, the subtle sense of 

 mastery, with which such a weapon endows him, is unlikely 

 to want to return to the weaver's beam of the early days of 

 the dry fly. The war for a time put an end to the im- 

 portation of those first-rate American split canes — specially 

 built for the English market — which were such a revelation 

 to English anglers. But that very fact afforded an oppor- 

 tunity to the British manufacturer to supply the demand. 

 Happily there seems to be a disposition on the part of some 

 of them, at any rate, to do so. And in this they have an 

 advantage over the American maker in their closer know- 

 ledge of British river conditions. 



The product looks, it is true, a thing of frail insufficiency. 

 But it adds enormously to the charm of angling to be able 

 to master and defeat leviathan with a weapon apparently 

 so inadequate. Really, the stripping of the superfluous 

 leaves it supremely adequate by means of an exquisite 

 adjustment of compensating inadequacies. It is strength 

 in a triumphant combination of weaknesses. 



The hook is inadequate to lift the trout. It is adequate 

 to hold him. The cast is inadequate to hand-line out the 

 fish, but it is fine enough not to scare him from the fly, and 

 with the give of the rod it is adequate to bring him to the 

 net. The rod is inadequate to lift the fish. But its pluck 

 is unending; it is never done; it is always able to yield a 

 bit more, and take it back again immediately. It is the 

 conquest of the strong by the frail. The heavy rod with 

 such a cast could put no more strain on the fish, would not 

 bring him to the net one moment sooner, while it will take 

 it out of the angler's wrist in the long day's fishing in the 



