Fisherman's luck and some other uncertain things . o the Doone Coun-try once, just to see that brook and to fish in stream looked smaller, and the water-slideless terrible, than they seemed in the it was a mighty pretty place after aU; andI suppose that even John Eidd, when he cameback to it in after years, found it shrunken alittle. All the streams were larger in our boyhoodthan they are now, except, perhaps, that whichflows from the sweetest spring of all, the foun-tain of love, which John Bidd discovered be-side the Bagworthy River, — and I, on the wil-low-shaded banks of th
Fisherman's luck and some other uncertain things . o the Doone Coun-try once, just to see that brook and to fish in stream looked smaller, and the water-slideless terrible, than they seemed in the it was a mighty pretty place after aU; andI suppose that even John Eidd, when he cameback to it in after years, found it shrunken alittle. All the streams were larger in our boyhoodthan they are now, except, perhaps, that whichflows from the sweetest spring of all, the foun-tain of love, which John Bidd discovered be-side the Bagworthy River, — and I, on the wil-low-shaded banks of the Patapsco, where theBaltimore girls fish for gudgeons, — and you?Come, gentle reader, is there no stream whosename is musical to you, because of a hiddenspring of love that you once found on its shore ?The waters of that fountain never fail, and inthem alone we taste the undiminished fulness ofimmortal youth. The stories of William Black are enlivenedwith fish, and he knew, better than most men,how they should be taken. Whenever he wanted146. Lorna Doones FISHING IN BOOKS to get two young people engaged to each other,all other devices failing, he sent them out toangle together. If it had not been for fishing,everything in A Princess of Thule and WhiteHeather would have gone wrong. But even men who have been disappointed inlove may angle for solace or diversion. I haveknown some old bachelors who fished excel-lently weU ; and others I have known who couldfind, and give, much pleasure in a day on thestream, though they had no skill in the this class was Washington Irving, with anextract from whose Sketch Booh I wiU bringthis rambling dissertation to an end. Our first essay, says he, was along amountain brook among the highlands of theHudson; a most unfortunate place for the execu-tion of those piscatory tactics which had been in-vented along the velvet margins of quiet Englishrivulets. It was one of those wild streams thatlavish, among our romantic solitudes
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