The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1908-06-04
The Anq|er's Conscience.

Now that budding foliage, purllng
brooks, hanging willows, spreading
oaks. sunny wales and glistening car
pets of green are inviting weary brains
to quit their toll, and weary hearts to
leave society and escape safety by seek
ing the solace and refreshment which
Nature provides for her exhausted chill
drep. how cordially do we echo the SEN
timent of good Isaak Walton, and say
with him: God speed all honest men
and anglers"
The archaeology of fishing is wofully
indefinite because the memory of man
runneth not to the contrary. whether
Belus or Seth, the son of Adam, be the
inventor of the sport, man seems pre-
ordained to be an angler, and fishing
has been eagerly followed from the very
earliest period in the worlds history.
Not more than two years ago discover
les inside tomb in Egypt disclosed the
figure of man, walking in process
sion, and carrying very modern-look-
ing rod and line with a barbed hook AT
the end. So it appears that this absorb,
ing and enhancing pursuit Was well
known in the land and the days OF the
Pharaohs. 1t may be remembered also
that among the amusementS PROVIDED
by Cleopatra for Marc Antony was that
of fishing from boat, and how she
went so far as to command divers 10
hook live fish onto Antony's line, when
his attention was diverted, and the 1sh
did not bite with readiness, thereby
proving herself in advance OF our meth
DDS, and establishing, by her wonderful
COMPREHENSION of the masculine nature,
her right and title, indisputably clear,
to the name of Serpent OF the Me!
Shakespeare avails himself of this incl
dent when he makes her attendant,
Chairman, say, in her efforts to cheer
her Respondent mistress:
OF was merry when
You wagered on your angling; when your diver
Did hang salt fish on his hook, which he
With fervency drew up
If to be good fisherman is an art,
surely it is high art to make another
person think he is a good fisherman!
The art of angling is an epltome OF the
game of life, and her career justlfies us
in saying that the Egyptian sorceress
was no tyro, but most accomplished
artist.
Some wicked scoffer has said that
Ananias was the first angler, but this
heartless statement is clearly dlsproVed
by these facts in ancient history which
we have cited, and the record of that
renowned but unfortunate individual
points rather to investments IN real
estate than to the innocent occupation
of fishing. The Apostles WeknoW were
anglers for fish before they became
fishers of men, and it is highly probable
that Noah, himself, looked up his
tackle, and bobbed for a whale, or
small fry, from window OF the ark.
The Oriental, everywhere, has very
high regard for fishermen, who are
among the ancients and honorable IN
all eastern lands, and no doubt the
scoffer's uDwarranted opinion may be
traced to chat reputation for elasticity
of conscience which the honest angler
seems to have won many ages ago.
But surely no one ought to be such
stickler for mathematical precision and
accuracy of detail as to critlclSe the
anglers conscience.
If. then. poets have license and see as
other men do not see, shall not the
angler claim his rights? And why
should not fish be greater in size and
weight, in his eyes, than in the undls
corning eyes of the man who did not
catch it? Is it objectionable or un-
natural that, as the circling glass
warns their hearts, anglers should talk
of nibhles that they never felt, or fancy
salmon that they never knew? Old
soldiers are wont to fight their battles
DER to shoulder arms and show how
fields were Won-Shail not the angler
empty his basket and display his siam?
Angling renders man keenly observ-
ant, and the angler knows and compre-
heudS much which is cavlare to the
common herd of the uninitiated, and
the poorest of all the craft is never
bankrupt, so long as his imagination
consents to honor his drafts upon her
Its great apostle, too, claimed that the
brotherhood of anglers possessed sere-
nitv of mind which humility invariably
bestows-the revered author of the
"Compleat Angler" whom none ever
had the heart to decry, save Byron,
who with characteristic venom Says:
"The quaint Old cruel coxcomb, in his gullet
should have a hook, and small trout to pull it,"
which couplet excites in our minds the
wonder that this poet should feel a
compassion for trout, which he never
felt for anything else. 1t is easy to
imagine Shelley or Keats fishing quiet
ly in some woodland stream, but Byron,
never-so simple pleasure was not for
him, Notwithstanding his boosted
pleasure in the painless woods and
rapture on the lonely shore.
1t is, however, a curious fact that DR..
Johnson is accredited with famous
definition of an angling rod which no
one has ever been able to discover in
any of his works. Whether or not the
old photographer was in quest of novel
OF startling definitions we cannot say,
but there is a standing joke among
anglers that he defined a fishing rod
thus: "a stick with fool at one end
and hook at the other" He, himself,
was too busy a man to be an angler, but
his profound admiration for IZaak Wal
ton was we'll known. 1t is quite true
that since man has fished for pleasure
rather than for proft--since he re-
CARDS angling as recreation and not
a vocation--he addicts himself to
it with sort of gentle frenzy,
and the French have passed
it into proverb, and indicate amiable,
inoffensive idiocy by saying that man
is capable de pecher la ligne.' and
if, indeed, one should take the pains to
consider the scores of placid, upper
tubed anglers who line the banks of
the Seine and the Loire, without the
most remote possibility of catch or a
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