There is in you a great leisure,
as though the day would never end. There is in you a great keenness.
One part of you is vibrantly alive. Your wrist muscles contract almost
automatically at the swirl of a rise, and the hum of life along the
gossamer of your line gains its communication with every nerve in your
body. The question of gear and method you attack clear-minded. What
fly? Montreal, Parmachenee Belle, Royal Coachman, Silver Doctor,
Professor, Brown Hackle, Cow-dung--these grand lures for the North
Country trout receive each its due test and attention. And on the tail
snell what fisherman has not the Gamble--the unusual, obscure,
multinamed fly which may, in the occultism of his taste, attract the
Big Fellows? Besides, there remains always the handling. Does your
trout to-day fancy the skittering of his food, or the withdrawal in
three jerks, or the inch-deep sinking of the fly? Does he want it
across current or up current; will he rise with a snap, or is he going
to come slowly, or is he going to play? These be problems interesting,
insistent to be solved, with the ready test within the reach of your
skill.
But that alertness is only one side of your mood. No matter how
difficult the selection, how strenuous the fight, there is in you a
large feeling that might almost be described as Buddhistic. Time has
nothing to do with your problems. The world has quietly run down, and
has been embalmed with all its sweetness of light and colour and sound
in a warm Lethe bath of sun.
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