Wolfgang wrote:

THE CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER*



"Nature, that made me enthusiastically fond of fishing,
gave me thumbs for fingers, short-sighted eyes, indolence, carelessness,
and a temper which (usually sweet and angelic) is goaded to madness by
the laws of matter and of gravitation. ...

....Well, it is stronger than myself, the love of fishing; perhaps it is
an inherited instinct, without the inherited power. I may have had a
fishing ancestor who bequeathed to me the passion without the art. My
vocation is fixed, and I have fished to little purpose all my days.
....the humour of it. ...

The passion, or instinct, being in all senses blind... It is full of
sorrow and bitterness and hope deferred, and entails the mockery of
friends, especially of the fair. But I would as soon lay down a love of
books as a love of fishing. ...

but there is the pleasure of the pursuit, the rapture of endeavour, the
delight of an impossible chase, the joys of nature--sky, trees, brooks,
and birds. ...

Grey hairs come, and stiff limbs, and shortened sight; but the spring is
green and hope is fresh for all the changes in the world and in
ourselves. ...

if our success be as poor as ever, our fancy can dream as well as ever
of better things and more fortunate chances. For fishing is like life...

The gleaming untravelled future, the bright untried waters, allure us
from day to day, from pool to pool..."


thanks for that wolfgang...simply amazing stuff that is more forceful on
a soul than any cancer.

jeff