' But ugly thou art in the eyes of the
uninitiated vulgar; a little stumpy old maid toddling about the world
in a black bonnet and a brown cloak, laughed at by naughty boys, but
doing good wherever thou comest, and leaving sweet memories behind
thee; so sweet that the trout will rise at the ghost or sham of thee,
for pure love of thy past kindnesses to them, months after thou hast
departed from this sublunary sphere. What hours of bliss do I not
owe to thee! How have I seen, in the rich meads of Wey, after
picking out wretched quarter-pounders all the morning on March-brown
and red-hackle, the great trout rush from every hover to welcome thy
first appearance among the sedges and buttercups! How often, late in
August, on Thames, on Test, on Loddon heads, have I seen the three
and four pound fish prefer thy dead image to any live reality. Have
I not seen poor old Si. Wilder, king of Thames fishermen (now gone
home to his rest), shaking his huge sides with delight over thy
mighty deeds, as his fourteen-inch whiskers fluttered in the breeze
like the horsetail standard of some great Bashaw, while crystal
Thames murmured over the white flints on Monkey Island shallow, and
the soft breeze sighed in the colossal poplar spires, and the great
trout rose and rose, and would not cease, at thee, my alder-fly?
Have I not seen, after a day in which the earth below was iron, and
the heavens above as brass, as the three-pounders would have thee,
and thee alone, in the purple August dusk, old Moody's red face grow
redder with excitement, half proud at having advised me to 'put on'
thee, half fearful lest we should catch all my lady's pet trout in
one evening? Beloved alder-fly! would that I could give thee a soul
(if indeed thou hast not one already, thou, and all things which
live), and make thee happy in all aeons to come! But as it is, such
immortality as I can I bestow on thee here, in small return for all
the pleasant days thou hast bestowed on me.
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