36 Fish Stories 



loved music, painting, good ale and a pipe, and takes care 

 to tell us that a certain artificial minnow was made by a 

 ' handsome woman that had fine hands.' But what ennobles 1 

 and justifies these lower loves, what gives him a special and 

 native aroma, is that above all, he loved the beauty and 

 holiness and the ways of taking and spending life, that make 

 it wholesome for ourselves and our fellows. His view of 

 the world is not of the wildest, but it is the Delectable Moun- • 

 tains that bound the prospect. Never surely was there a 

 more lovable man, nor to whom love found access by more 

 avenues of sympathy." 



If such be the " Compleat Angler," then, as Walton him- : 

 self once observed, it is indeed " good luck to any man to be 

 on the good side of the man that knows fish ! " 



