ke trout, and that the great secret was this, that,
whatever bait you used, worm, grasshopper, grub, or fly, there was one
thing you must always put upon your hook, namely, your heart: when you
bait your hook with your heart the fish always bite; they will jump
clear from the water after it; they will dispute with each other over
it; it is a morsel they love above everything else. With such bait I
have seen the born angler (my grandfather was one) take a noble string
of trout from the most unpromising waters, and on the most unpromising
day. He used his hook so coyly and tenderly, he approached the fish
with such address and insinuation, he divined the exact spot where they
lay: if they were not eager, he humored them and seemed to steal by
them; if they were playful and coquettish, he would suit his mood to
theirs; if they were frank and sincere, he met them halfway; he was so
patient and considerate, so entirely devoted to pleasing the critical
trout, and so successful in his efforts,--surely his heart was upon his
hook, and it was a tender, unctuous heart, too, as that of every angler
is. How nicely he would measure the distance! how dexterously he would
avoid an overhanging limb or bush and drop the line exactly in the
right spot! Of course there was a pulse of feeling and sympathy to the
extremity of that line. If your heart is a stone, however, or an empty
husk, there is no use to put it upon your hook; it will not tempt the
fish; the bait must be quick and fresh. Indeed, a certain quality of
youth is indispensable to the successful angler, a certain
unworldliness and readiness to invest yourself in an enterprise that
doesn't pay in the current coin. Not only is the angler, like the
poet, born and not made, as Walton says, but there is a deal of the
poet in him, and he is to be judged no more harshly; he is the victim
of his genius: those wild streams, how they haunt him! he will play
truant to dull care, and flee to them; their waters impart somewhat of
their own perpetual youth to him. My grandfather when he was eighty
years old would take down his pole as eagerly as any boy, and step off
with wonderful elasticity toward the beloved streams; it used to try my
young legs a good deal to follow him, specially on the return trip. And
no poet was ever more innocent of worldly success or ambition. For, to
paraphrase Tennyson,--

"Lusty trout to him were scrip and share,
And babbling waters more than cent