“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them,” and so it is with angling. Some are born fishermen,
some acquire the art, and it is thrust upon some by necessity. I
_read_ myself into it. My first _penchant_ for angling was created by
that prince of good fellows and good fishermen, Izaak Walton. I well
remember one sunny spring morning, while reclining indolently in my
little piazza with the “complete angler” open before me, I was
suddenly smitten with a love for the “cool shaded stream” and the
exercise of the angling rod. What a happy time of it hath the
fisherman, thought I. How quietly his life passeth away; his spirits
are always unruffled, and his bosom unknown to the cares that harass
the rest of mankind. Here am I, always excited or depressed, and
eternally ruminating upon dollars and cents, without ever allowing
myself time to breathe the pure air of heaven in peace. I will turn
fisherman, quoth I to myself, and immediately proceeded to purchase a
rod and tackle just such as is recommended in the “complete angler,”
mentally repeating all the while, one of honest old Izaak's wishes.
“I in these flowery meads would be,
These chrystal streams should solace me,
To whose harmonious babbling noise,
I with my angle would rejoice.”
Duly accoutred according to the directions of master Izaak, I wended
my way with a light heart and impatient step, to the slippery banks of
old Neuse, chasing and catching grasshoppers for bait, as I passed
through a meadow that lay in my way. When arrived at the {539} river I
ensconced myself “secretly behind a tree,” fastened a grasshopper on
my hook, and let it down to the water “as softly as a snail moves,”
nothing doubting that I should soon draw forth a chub of the first
water. There I sat with all the patience recommended by the “complete
angler,” for two good long hours, expecting every moment to see the
writhing grasshopper taken down by some monster of a chub. But nothing
disturbed the poor fellow's kicking, except an impudent dragon fly
that alighted on him, and sat there, floating lazily on the water and
basking his bright wings in the warm sun, very prejudicially, as I
thought, to Mr. Walton's manner of fishing. About this time I began to
have some doubts as to the practice of master Izaak's rules for chub
fishing in our uncivilized streams, and was pretty well cured of my
fishing mania. I must say, though in justice to my preceptor, that I
lacked one essential qualification for a fisherman—_devotion_, though
I swore not an oath, sorely tempted as I was. This was doubtless the
reason of my bad luck. After seeing the poor grasshopper make his last
effort to get loose, without the least interruption from a chub, I
despaired of ever being an angler, and “drew up stakes” to make for
home, consoling myself with the reflection that “angling is like
poetry—men are born to it.” As I trudged leisurely along I could not
help thinking that I had been vastly more taken with the oddities and
eccentricities of the devout old fisherman, than with the practice of
his art in these unromantic regions, and inwardly assented to Swift's
definition of angling—“a stick and a string, with a fool at one end
and a worm at the other.” Ever since that day, I have been pointed at
as the man that fished by the book, much to the gratification of my
rustic neighbors, and mortification of myself.