ius as to attract thereunto not only
our sympathies but also our enthusiasm.

Yes, truly, he should be read with understanding; what author should
not? I would no more think of putting my Boccaccio into the hands of a
dullard than I would think of leaving a bright and beautiful woman at
the mercy of a blind mute.

I have hinted at the horror of the fate which befell Yseult Hardynge in
the seclusion of Mr. Henry Boggs's Lincolnshire estate. Mr. Henry
Boggs knew nothing of romance, and he cared less; he was wholly
incapable of appreciating a woman with dark, glorious eyes and an
expanding soul; I'll warrant me that he would at any time gladly have
traded a "Decameron" for a copy of "The Gentleman Poulterer," or for a
year's subscription to that grewsome monument to human imbecility,
London "Punch."

Ah, Yseult! hadst thou but been a book!

VII

THE DELIGHTS OF FENDER-FISHING

I should like to have met Izaak Walton. He is one of the few authors
whom I know I should like to have met. For he was a wise man, and he
had understanding. I should like to have gone angling with him, for I
doubt not that like myself he was more of an angler theoretically than
practically. My bookseller is a famous fisherman, as, indeed,
booksellers generally are, since the methods employed by fishermen to
deceive and to catch their finny prey are very similar to those
employed by booksellers to attract and to entrap buyers.

As for myself, I regard angling as one of the best of avocations, and
although I have pursued it but little, I concede that doubtless had I
practised it oftener I should have been a better man. How truly has
Dame Juliana Berners said that "at the least the angler hath his
wholesome walk and merry at his ease, and a sweet air of the sweet
savour of the mead flowers that maketh him hungry; he heareth the
melodious harmony of fowls; he seeth the young swans, herons, ducks,
cotes, and many other fowls with their broods, which meseemeth better
than all the noise of hounds, the blasts of horns, and the cry of fowls
that hunters, falconers, and fowlers can make. And IF the angler take
fish--surely then is there no man merrier than he is in his spirit!"

My bookseller cannot understand how it is that, being so enthusiastic a
fisherman theoretically, I should at the same time indulge so seldom in
the practice of fishing, as if, forsooth, a man should be expected to
engage continually and actively in every art and