This reminds me that we left H. E. G----, a few sentences back,
playing his unexpected salmon, on a trout-rod, in the Saguenay.
Four times that great fish leaped into the air; twice he suffered
the pliant reed to guide him toward the shore, and twice ran out
again to deeper water.  Then his spirit awoke within him: he bent
the rod like a willow wand, dashed toward the middle of the river,
broke the line as if it had been pack-thread, and sailed
triumphantly away to join the white porpoises that were tumbling in
the tide.  "WHE-E-EW," they said, "WHE-E-EW! PSHA-A-AW!" blowing out
their breath in long, soft sighs as they rolled about like huge
snowballs in the black water.  But what did H. E. G---- say?  He sat
him quietly down upon a rock and reeled in the remnant of his line,
uttering these remarkable and Christian words: "Those porpoises,"
said he, "describe the situation rather mildly.  But it was good fun
while it lasted."

Again I remembered a saying of Walton: "Well, Scholar, you must
endure worse luck sometimes, or you will never make a good angler."

Or a good man, either, I am sure.  For he who knows only how to
enjoy, and not to endure, is ill-fitted to go down the stream of
life through such a world as this.

I would not have you to suppose, gentle reader, that in discoursing
of fisherman's luck I have in mind only those things which may be
taken with a hook.  It is a parable of human experience.  I have
been thinking, for instance, of Walton's life as well as of his
angling: of the losses and sufferings that he, the firm Royalist,
endured when the Commonwealth men came marching into London town; of
the consoling days that were granted to him, in troublous times, on
the banks of the Lea and the Dove and the New River, and the good
friends that he made there, with whom he took sweet counsel in
adversity; of the little children who played in his house for a few
years, and then were called away into the silent land where he could
hear their voices no longer.  I was thinking how quietly and
peaceably he lived through it all, not complaining nor desponding,
but trying to do his work well, whether he was keeping a shop or
writing hooks, and seeking to prove himself an honest man and a
cheerful companion, and never scorning to take with a thankful heart
such small comforts and recreations as came to him.

It is a plain, homely, old-fashioned meditation, reader, but not
unprofitable.  When I talk to you of fisherman's luck, I do not
forget that there are deeper things behind it.  I remember that what
we call our fortunes, good or ill, are but the wise dealings and
distributions of a Wisdom higher, and a Kindness greater, than our
own.  And I suppose that their meaning is that we should learn, by
all the uncertainties of our life, even the smallest, how to be
brave and steady and temperate and hopeful, whatever comes, because
we believe that behind it all there lies a purpose of good, and over
it all there watches a providence of blessing.

In the school of life many branches of knowledge are taught.  But
the only philosophy that amounts to anything, after all, is just the
secret of making friends with our luck.