24 DOWN THE BECK 



venerable dictum of Dr Johnson on the other, 

 lies a truer appreciation of the art of angling 

 with a fly as being the busy man's most suitable 

 recreation, in the strictest sense of the word, in 

 these feverish days of intellectual and social bustle. 

 Besides the love of sport for its own sake, fly-fishing 

 provides numerous secondary delights and occupa- 

 tions for thoughtful, observant natures. Whatever 

 be a man's hobby, he can ride it as hard as he 

 chooses down the banks of a trout stream. The 

 rigour of the game is all very well for whist ; but 

 fishing, with no other object than killing fish, is 

 altogether mean and ignoble. In this pursuit the 

 fisherman may be conchologist, ornithologist, or 

 botanist as well — nay, he may be all at once, and 

 probably is so if he be a devoted student of nature. 

 The poet can throw off a sonnet while he flings his 

 fly ; the clergyman will be taught by angling, as 

 truly as by Shakespeare, how to find sermons in 

 stones, and books in the running brooks. Did not 

 St Anthony convert heretics by preaching to the 

 fishes 1 Like Narcissus of old, the lover may see 

 his other self mirrored in the quiet waters. What- 

 ever be his profession, while the angler meditatively 

 saunters on with a blade of grass between his lips, 

 his thoughts will sooner or later be certain to find 

 their own peculiar bent. Even the philosopher 



