132 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM 



Nothing presents itself to any two minds in 

 an identical light. We all see the multicoloured 

 facets of truth from a different angle. No ex- 

 perience is the same to two diverse idiosyncrasies, 

 and the only help which the writing of a book of 

 this kind can be to others is, not in the laying 

 down of rules, not in the preaching or advocating 

 of systems, not in teaching that which the writer 

 has beaten out by his own experience, but in hints 

 which start or help trains of observation or 

 inquiry in the reader's mind, so as to stimulate 

 him by personal thought and experiment to work 

 out, and prove, and make his own, the conclusions 

 which his own personality is capable of drawing 

 from the test. 



In this way only is progress possible. In this, 

 and in doing something to assure that, in the new 

 learning and in the new systems which come along, 

 that which is of value in the systems of the past 

 shall not be forgotten, but shall be transmuted 

 to the uses of the present and the future, is all 

 the justification I can plead for the foregoing 

 pages. 



In giving records of my own experience by the 

 water-side rather than in laying down a system, 

 I am not asking others to do as I do because I say 

 it, or to accept anything from me. I would have 

 no weight allowed by any man to tradition or 

 authority until it is proved by himself ; no man's 

 words accepted as final because they are his; 



