overmuch confidence in the importance of our own endeavours.

"For how much of the evil that is in the world cometh from this
plaguy habit of being in haste! The haste to get riches, the haste
to climb upon some pinnacle of worldly renown, the haste to resolve
mysteries--from these various kinds of haste are begotten no small
part of the miseries and afflictions whereby the children of men are
tormented: such as quarrels and strifes among those who would over-
reach one another in business; envyings and jealousies among those
who would outshine one another in rich apparel and costly equipage;
bloody rebellions and cruel wars among those who would obtain power
over their fellow-men; cloudy disputations and bitter controversies
among those who would fain leave no room for modest ignorance and
lowly faith among the secrets of religion; and by all these miseries
of haste the heart grows weary, and is made weak and dull, or else
hard and angry, while it dwelleth in the midst of them.

"But let me tell you that an angler's occupation is a good cure for
these evils, if for no other reason, because it gently dissuadeth us
from haste and leadeth us away from feverish anxieties into those
ways which are pleasantness and those paths which are peace. For an
angler cannot force his fortune by eagerness, nor better it by
discontent. He must wait upon the weather, and the height of the
water, and the hunger of the fish, and many other accidents of which
he has no control. If he would angle well, he must not be in haste.
And if he be in haste, he will do well to unlearn it by angling, for
I think there is no surer method.

"This fair tree that shadows us from the sun hath grown many years
in its place without more unhappiness than the loss of its leaves in