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Show ''He aile• a meditative life, and with evident llincerily: but we feel thaj he l::ftd nothing 10 well aa uood talk." - JAMEB RusSELL LowELL: Walton. TALKABILITY I PRELUDE-ON AN OLD, FOOLISH MAXIM THE inventor of the familiar maxim that "fishermen must not talk" is lost in the mists of antiquity, and well deserves his fate. For a more foolish rule, a conventionality more obscure and aimless in its tyranny, was never imposed upon an innocent and honourable occupation, to diminish its pleasure and discount its profits. Why, in the name of all that is genial, should anglers go about their harmless sport in stealthy silence like conspirators, or sit together in a boat, dumb, glum, and penitential, like naughty schoolboys on the bench of disgrace? 'Tis an Omorcan superstition; a rule without a reason; a venerable, idiotic fashion invented to repress lively spirits and put a premium on stupidity. For my part, I incline rather to the opinion of 55 |