fastening the
joints in this way, a uniform spring is secured in the rod. No one
devoted to high art would think of using a socket joint. My line was
forty yards of untwisted silk upon a multiplying reel. The "leader"
(I am very particular about my leaders) had been made to order from a
domestic animal with which I had been acquainted. The fisherman
requires as good a catgut as the violinist. The interior of the
house cat, it is well known, is exceedingly sensitive; but it may not
be so well known that the reason why some cats leave the room in
distress when a piano-forte is played is because the two instruments
are not in the same key, and the vibrations of the chords of the one
are in discord with the catgut of the other. On six feet of this
superior article I fixed three artificial flies,--a simple brown
hackle, a gray body with scarlet wings, and one of my own invention,
which I thought would be new to the most experienced fly-catcher.
The trout-fly does not resemble any known species of insect. It is a
"conventionalized" creation, as we say of ornamentation. The theory
is that, fly-fishing being a high art, the fly must not be a tame
imitation of nature, but an artistic suggestion of it. It requires
an artist to construct one; and not every bungler can take a bit of
red flannel, a peacock's feather, a flash of tinsel thread, a cock's
plume, a section of a hen's wing, and fabricate a tiny object that
will not look like any fly, but still will suggest the universal
conventional fly.

I took my stand in the center of the tipsy boat; and Luke shoved off,
and slowly paddled towards some lily-pads, while I began casting,
unlimbering my tools, as it were. The fish had all disappeared.
I got out, perhaps, fifty feet of line, with no response, and
gradually increased it to one hundred. It is not difficult to learn
to cast; but it is difficult to learn not to snap off the flies at
every throw. Of this, however, we will not speak. I continued
casting for some moments, until I became satisfied that there had
been a miscalculation. Either the trout were too green to know what
I was at, or they were dissatisfied with my offers. I reeled in, and
changed the flies (that is, the fly that was not snapped off). After
studying the color of the sky, of the water, and of the foliage, and
the moderated light of the afternoon, I put on a series of beguilers,
all of a subdued brilliancy, in harmony with the approach of evening.
At the s