314 Book of the Black Bass. 



its true and proper setting of leaves and flowers and spark- 

 ling water. If it were otherwise he would find as much 

 pleasure in fishing in the flume of the fish-culturist, or in 

 viewing the fish in the fish-monger's stall. 



Truly, the stream and its surroundings are all in all to 

 the angler. I am not much given to preaching, though I 

 come of a race of preachers, but I can not refrain from 

 presenting to the reader the following eloquent similitude 

 and beautiful comparison between the angler's stream and 

 the stream of life, showing the easy and natural transition 

 from the love of angling to the love of nature and nature's 

 God. I feel more like presenting it because it is an extract 

 from a sermon of one (Eev. Dr. H.) who has both the 

 love of God and the love of angling deeply engrafted in his 

 heart : 



" Act, therefore, while the day calls. Live its life as if life 

 were complete in it. Xot that it contains all varieties of experi- 

 ence, but so joins the days before and after as to make them 

 one stream, which your spirit should wade cheerily as the trout 

 fisher wades his brook. 



" His brook is wild, because the trout loves waters where boats 

 can not follow them, nor even lumber logs roll free; waters that 

 twist and plunge, and shoot and eddy, with many a snag in the 

 midst and fallen tree across. 



■■ And there the fisher seeks them by an instinct like their own 

 — ^loving the bends that lock the pools, the shoals that embank 

 the deep, the concealment of trackless woods, with their twilight 

 noons and mystic noises, and eveiy diflSculty that teases him to 

 more eager quest of his water-sprites. 



'• When no upward flash meets his fly he reels his line in ex- 

 pectation to give a merrier hum to the next throw, and again to 

 the next, until all expectations are fulfilled at once when his 

 wrist tingles to tlie trout's jerk and swirl and jump. 



" And still that wrist tingles through casts that take no prize, 

 until another capture renews its thrill. Broken leaders, snarled 

 lines, torn garments, biuised limbs, do not spoil his hilarity. 



