CHAPTER XXXIII 



THE HARDEST FIGHTERS 



IR HENRY WOOTON, once provost of Eton, 

 was an angler, and of the art he said : " It was 

 an employment for his idle time which was then, 

 not really spent idly; for angling was, after 

 tedious study, a rest to the mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a 

 diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moder- 

 ator of passions, a procurer of contentedness, and that it 

 begot habits of peace in those that professed and practised 

 it. Indeed, my friend, you will find angling to be like the 

 virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit, and a 

 world of other blessings attending up it." 



Such sentiments have come home to many a " brother of 

 the angle," whether wading up or down some woodland 

 stream, where the wind makes soft music among the pine 

 needles, or in the deep blue water at sea, where the splendid 

 colors, the variety of cloud effects, the stillness, are all factors 

 of the day's delight'. Many a time, weary of the thousand 

 and one diversions of life and its growing conventionalities, 

 I have slipped out of the little vale of Avalon onto the sea 

 of turquoise, which rapidly changed as the sun rose, and 

 gave the clear, smooth disk of the ocean all the tints of the 

 abalone or opal. We are far out at sea. The air is clear, 

 and like the satin of the rose petal on the cheek. The high 

 cliffs, rich in tone and color, are reflected in the sea ; every- 

 thing is calm and quiet, the ocean is asleep, save for the long 

 mysterious pulsations of its breast — messengers from the 

 deep and distant sea, telling of storm and disaster, far away. 

 The very peacefulness of such a scene is a delight, and that 



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