The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: and the streams, which are all free, are much less fished than in
our Island, 'from the small number of gentlemen,' as an American
writer says, 'who are at leisure to give their time to it.'"
--WILLIAM ANDREW CHATTO: The Angler's Souvenir (London, 1835).
That wise man and accomplished scholar, Sir Henry Wotton, the friend
of Izaak Walton and ambassador of King James I to the republic of
Venice, was accustomed to say that "he would rather live five May
months than forty Decembers." The reason for this preference was no
secret to those who knew him. It had nothing to do with British or
Venetian politics. It was simply because December, with all its
domestic joys, is practically a dead month in the angler's calendar.
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