14 I GO A -FISHING. 



and digging into old ruins. One does not know what is 

 under the surface. There may be something or there 

 may be nothing. He tries, and the rush of something 

 startles every nerve. Let no man laugh at a comparison 

 of trout-fishing with antiquarian researches. I know a 

 man who has done a great deal of both, and who scarcely 

 knows which is most absorbing or most remunerating ; 

 for each enriches mind and body, each gratifies the most 

 refined tastes, each becomes a passion unless the pursuer 

 guard his enthusiasm and moderate his desires. 



It is nothing strange that men who throw their flies for 

 trout should dream of it. 



As long ago as when Theocritus wrote his Idyls, men 

 who caught fish dreamed of their sport or work, whichev- 

 er it was. It can not, indeed, be said that the Greek fish- 

 erman dreamed of the mere excitement of fishing, for to 

 him the sea was a place of toil, and his poor hut was but 

 a miserable hovel. He fished for its reward in gold ; and 

 he dreamed that he took a fish of gold, whose value would 

 relieve him from the pains and toils of his life, and when 

 he was awake he feared that he had bound himself by an 

 oath in his dream, and his wise companion — philosopher 

 then, as all anglers were, and are, and will be evermore — 

 relieved him by a brief sermon, wherein lies a moral. 

 Look it up, and read it. What angler does not dream of 

 great fish rising with heavy roll and plunge to seize the 

 fly ? What dreams those are ! 



Is there any thing strange, then, in the question wheth- 

 er Peter in his slumber never dreamed of the great fish 

 in the Sea of Galilee, or the gentle John, in his old age 

 and weary longing for the end, did not sometimes recall 

 in sleep other and more earthly scenes than the sub- 

 lime visions of inspiration ? Do you doubt — I do not — 



