The Philosophy of Angling. 313 



he must bring a large measure of hope and patience^ and a 

 love and propensity to the art itself; but having once got 

 and practiced it, then doubt not but angling will prove to 

 be so pleasant, that it will prove to be, like virtue, a reward 

 to itself." 



The art of angling, with the improvements and appli- 

 ances thereunto pertaining, will not suffer by a comparison 

 with the progress of any other out-door recreation. The 

 love of angling increases with the lapse of years, for its 

 love grows by what it feeds on. 



Wiser and more healthful and more humane sentiments 

 now prevail among the guild than formerly, so that its 

 practice more nearly approaches and deserves its appella- 

 tion of the " gentle art." 



Fishing for count, and the slaughter of the innocents, 

 and the torturing of the fish, when caught, by a lingering 

 death, now meet with the opprobrium of all true disciples 

 of the craft, and have become abhorrent and despicable 

 practices. 



The genuine angler " loves " angling for its own sake ; 

 the pot-fisher "likes" fishing for the spoils it brings, 

 whether captured with the hook, spear or seine. 



The angler wending his way by the silvery stream, or 

 resting upon its grassy banks, has an innate love for all his 

 surroundings — the trees, the birds, the fiowers — which 

 become part and parcel of his pursuit; become true and 

 tried friends and allies without whom he could no more 

 love his art, nor practice it, than the astronomer could 

 view the heavens with pleasure on a cloudy, starless night. 



It is the love of the stream in its turnings and windings, 

 its depths and its shallows, its overhanging branches and 

 grassy slopes, that gives to the art of angling its chiefest 

 charm, and presents the bass or the trout to the angler in 



