Every day of angling has some measure of joy and some of sorrow. There is, for example, the delight, always very keen, of viewing the water on arrival, though this has, within my experience, been wanting, the pond which I meditated fishing on one occasion having entirely disappeared, owing to a breach in its embankment. But this disappointment was balanced to some extent by the knowledge that I should never fish there again. It had been an infam—nil nisi bonum. On the other side of the account there is the sorrow of catching no fish. This is acute, and usual with me. But even on my blank days I can look back with pleasure. One carries away something with one from a river, though the creel be empty as the day it was woven. One cannot have failed to see all sorts of pretty things, to hear all sorts of pretty sounds, to smell sweet scents, to relish one's lunch. The senses have been exquisitely wooed. One has been out of London. That in itself is a rich satisfaction.
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