This
doctrine I preach, being my own "awful example." "Bad and careless
little boy," my worthy master used to say at school; and he would have
provoked a smile in other circumstances. But Mr. Trotter, of the
Edinburgh Academy, had something about him (he usually carried it in the
tail-pocket of his coat) which inspired respect and discouraged ribaldry.
Would that I had listened to Mr. Trotter; would that I had corrected, in
early life, the happy-go-lucky disposition to scatter my Greek accents,
as it were, with a pepper-caster, to fish with worn tackle, and,
generally, to make free with the responsibilities of life and literature.
It is too late to amend, but others may learn wisdom from this spectacle
of deserved misfortune and absolute discomfiture.
I am not myself a salmon-fisher, though willing to try that art again,
and though this is a tale of salmon. To myself the difference between
angling for trout and angling for salmon is like the difference between a
drawing of Lionardo's, in silver point, and a loaded landscape by
MacGilp, R.A. Trout-fishing is all an idyll, all delicacy--that is,
trout-fishing on the Test or on the Itchen. You wander by clear water,
beneath gracious poplar-trees, unencumbered with anything but a slim rod
of Messrs. Hardy's make, and a light toy-box of delicate flies.
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