Who among you, dear readers, can appreciate the intense delight of
grassing your first big fish after a nine-months’ fast? All first
sensations have their special pleasure; but none can be named, in a
small way, to beat this of the first fish of the season. The first
clean leg-hit for four in your first match at Lord’s—the grating of
the bows of your racing-boat against the stern of the boat ahead in
your first race—the first half-mile of a burst from the cover-side
in November, when the hounds in the field ahead may be covered in a
tablecloth, and no one but the huntsman and a top sawyer or two lies
between you and them—the first brief after your call to the bar, if it
comes within the year—the sensations produced by these are the same
in kind; but cricket, boating, getting briefs, even hunting, lose
their edge as time goes on. But the first fish comes back as fresh
as ever, or ought to come, if all men had their rights, once in a
season. So, good luck to the gentle craft and its professors, and may
the Fates send us much into their company! The trout-fisher, like the
landscape-painter, haunts the loveliest places of the earth, and haunts
them alone. Solitude, nature, and his own thoughts—he must be on the
best terms with all these; and he who can take kindly the largest
allowance of these is likely to be the kindliest and truest with his
fellow-men.