anyone own the book this is taken from 'The Compleat Angler'? I'm gonna get a used copy, only $10. Well worth it even if there's just one more quote like this one in it.
From a paper I wrote a long time ago:
Walton shares with his readers the words of Sir Henry Wotton, a Provost of Eton College in the early 1600’s, who was:
…a most dear lover, and frequent practiser [sic], of the art of Angling; of which he would say, ‘’T was an employment for his idle time, which was not then idly spent:’ for Angling was, after tedious study, ‘a time to rest his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness;’ and ‘that it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and practiced it.’
Thoreau agrees, stating that “fishing has been styled ‘a contemplative man’s recreation,’ introducing him profitably to woods and water. . . .” Walton, whom Thoreau quotes above, puts it nicely:
. . .for Angling is somewhat like Poetry, men are to be born so: I mean with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice; but he that hopes to be a good Angler must not only bring an inquiring, searching, observing wit, but he must bring a large measure of hope and patience, and a love and propensity to the art itself; but having once got and practiced it, then doubt not but Angling will prove to be so pleasant, that it will prove to be like virtue, a reward to itself.
