It is not only in cases of great disasters, however, that the
angler needs self-control. He is perpetually called upon to use it
to withstand small exasperations."--SIR EDWARD GREY: Fly-Fishing.
Every moment of life, I suppose, is more or less of a turning-point.
Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, thicker than
gnats at sundown. We walk through a cloud of chances, and if we
were always conscious of them they would worry us almost to death.
But happily our sense of uncertainty is soothed and cushioned by
habit, so that we can live comfortably with it. Only now and then,
by way of special excitement, it starts up wide awake. We perceive
how delicately our fortune is poised and balanced on the pivot of a
single incident. We get a peep at the oscillating needle, and,
because we have happened to see it tremble, we call our experience a
crisis.
The meditative angler is not exempt from these sensational periods.
There are times when all the uncertainty of his chosen pursuit seems
to condense itself into one big chance, and stand out before him
like a salmon on the top wave of a rapid. He sees that his luck
hangs by a single strand, and he cannot tell whether it will hold or
break. This is his thrilling moment, and he never forgets it.
Mine came to me in the autumn of 1894, on the banks of the
Unpronounceable River, in the Province of Quebec.
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