you to suppose, gentle reader, that in discoursing of
fisherman's luck I have in mind only those things which may be taken
with a hook. It is a parable of human experience. I have been thinking,
for instance, of Walton's life as well as of his angling: of the losses
and sufferings that he, the firm Royalist, endured when the Commonwealth
men came marching into London town; of the consoling days that were
granted to him, in troublous times, on the banks of the Lea and the Dove
and the New River, and the good friends that he made there, with whom
he took sweet counsel in adversity; of the little children who played
in his house for a few years, and then were called away into the silent
land where he could hear their voices no longer. I was thinking how
quietly and peaceably he lived through it all, not complaining nor
desponding, but trying to do his work well, whether he was keeping a
shop or writing hooks, and seeking to prove himself an honest man and
a cheerful companion, and never scorning to take with a thankful heart
such small comforts and recreations as came to him.

It is a plain, homely, old-fashioned meditation, reader, but not
unprofitable. When I talk to you of fisherman's luck, I do not forget
that there are deeper things behind it. I remember that what we call our
fortunes, good or ill, are but the wise dealings and distributions of a
Wisdom higher, and a Kindness greater, than our own. And I suppose that
their meaning is that we should learn, by all the uncertainties of our
life, even the smallest, how to be brave and steady and temperate and
hopeful, whatever comes, because we believe that behind it all there
lies a purpose of good, and over it all there watches a providence of
blessing.

In the school of life many branches of knowledge are taught. But the
only philosophy that amounts to anything, after all, is just the secret
of making friends with our luck.

THE THRILLING MOMENT

"In angling, as in all other recreations into which
excitement enters, we have to be on our guard, so that we
can at any moment throw a weight of self-control into the
scale against misfortune; and happily we can study to some
purpose, both to increase our pleasure in success and to
lessen our distress caused by what goes ill. It is not only
in cases of great disasters, however, that the angler needs
self-control. He is perpetually called upon to use it to
withstand