No, I say, we must not always follow rules regardless of conditions. We must not judge all trout alike, even if they be of one species. Men, though of one race, are not all alike in their habits any more than they are in their sizes and colors.
I found in some parts of the stream that as long as I changed the flies I had rises; in other parts no trout took the fly, no matter how I worked it. Perhaps there were no fish hereabout; perhaps they saw me; perhaps they were not hungry, and perhaps there were hundreds and thousands of other reasons why they were not to be taken in these certain places.
No man can strictly follow rules in all cases and take trout upon every occasion of his trials. Conditions govern, and must be studied—conditions, conditions.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ANGLER'S PRAYER—SAVE THE WOODS AND WATERS
"Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of other things. And it is not by any means certain that a man's business is the most important thing he has to do."
Robert Louis Stevenson.
Commerce or civilization or whatever you like to call modern man's accumulation of money wealth at the sacrifice of nature is perpetrated with no greater force than in the wanton waste of our forests—the trees given by God to the people and stolen from the people by individuals. It seems all right for man to prudently use our forests in the making of homes and other practical things of actual necessity, but it is a downright shame that the people allow greedy men to destroy the trees for the mere sake of adding dollars to the destroyers' already well-filled purses. And these selfish men even deprive the people of their breathing-air, drinking-water, and fish food. Springs, ponds, and brooks are dried up by the loss of sheltering foliage. Lakes and rivers are ruined by the commercial gentry's waste acid, dye, oil, gas, etc., and the very air we breathe is poisoned by the fumes of the money-makers' chimneys.