8 ANGLING SKETCHES 



Success with pen or rod may be beyond one, 

 but there is the pleasure of the pursuit, tlje rapture 

 of endeavour, the delight of an impossible chase, 

 the joys of nature; — sky, trees, brooks, and birds. 

 Happiness in these things is the legacy to us of 

 the barbarian. Man in the future will enjoy bricks, 

 asphalte, fog, machinery, ' society,' even picture 

 galleries, as many men and most women do already. 

 We are fortunate who inherit the older, not ' the 

 new. spirit' — we who, skilled or unskilled, follow in 

 the steps of our father, Izaak, by streams less 

 clear, indeed, and in meadows less fragrant, than 

 his. Still, they are meadows and streams, not 

 wholly dispeopled yet of birds and trout ; nor can 

 any defect of art, nor certainty of laborious dis- 

 appointment, keep us from the waterside when 

 April comes. 



Next to being an expert, it is well to be a con- 

 tented duffer: a man who would fish if he could, 

 and who will pleasure himself by flicking off his 

 flies, and dreaming of impossible trout, and smok- 

 ing among the sedges Hope's enchanted cjgarettes. 

 Next time we shall be more skilled, more fortunate. 



