job, has to go fishing unless he wants to. He may indeed find himself
breakfast-less in camp, and obliged to betake himself to the
brook,--but then he need not have gone into the woods at all. Yet if
he does decide to fish, let him

"Venture as warily, use the same skill,
Do his best, ..."

whatever variety of tackle he may choose. He can be a whole-souled
sportsman with the poorest equipment, or a mean "trout-hog" with the
most elaborate.

Only, in the name of gentle Izaak himself, let him be a _complete_
angler; and let the man be a passionate amateur of all the arts of
life, despising none of them, and using all of them for his soul's good
and for the joy of his fellows. If he be, so to speak, but a
worm-fisherman,--a follower of humble occupations, and pledged to
unromantic duties,--let him still thrill with the pleasures of the true
sportsman. To make the most of dull hours, to make the best of dull
people, to like a poor jest better than none, to wear the threadbare
coat like a gentleman, to be outvoted with a smile, to hitch your wagon
to the old horse if no star is handy,--this is the wholesome philosophy
taught by fishing with a worm. The fun of it depends upon the heart.
There may be as much zest in saving as in spending, in working for
small wages as for great, in avoiding the snapshots of publicity as in
being invariably first "among those present." But a man should be
honest. If he catches most of his fish with a worm, secures the larger
portion of his success by commonplace industry, let him glory in it,
for this, too, is part of the great game. Yet he ought not in that case
to pose as a fly-fisherman only,--to carry himself as one aware of the