I GO A-FISHING 
E 
© tell the truth, scarcely a fisherman’s bent as 
f you will suggest, | am an ill fisherman. [| would 
not decoy some ardent lover of rod and line to 
. read these inconsequent lines, thinking I was 
_- piscatorial artist, or that I had fast friendship 
=24 with our good friend, quaint and gentle, Ike 
Walton. We are bare acquaintances. I met 
him once, once only, along the river Dove tak- 
ing a grayling from his hook, and so not seeing 
me, for so true a fisherman was always more 
engrossed with fish than men (nor do | blaine 
him); and I was only wandering along the stream watching the shadows 
on the quiet water and the pools where sunlight came and staid as taking 
a whole day of holiday. No, I know as little about fishing as about 
botany. I know not what sort of bait catches what sort of fish. I 
seldom get a nibble, and much more rarely get a fish, though Provi- 
dence knows | wish the fish knew how safe it is to intrust themselves to 
my hook, for I throw back into the stream, with scant reluctance, the 
fish | catch. [I am much more pious and tender-hearted than your piety- 
professing fisherman, who, while he talks gently of the ‘gentle art,”’ kills 
whom he surprises, like any other bandit, and lays snares like an assas- 
sin, and fresh in iniquity says his prayers like a murderer making the 
sign of the cross above the corpse he has made. No, I never knew 
enough, or so little, | know not which, as to succeed in catching fish, 
yet I say boldly, though as I hope with modesty, that I can throw a line 
into the water and let it stay there with a degree of resolution wortny of 
a French cavalier of the reign of Louis the Saint. To state the facts 
frankly, as becometh a Christian, I], having had many friends who were 
81 
