It is the old story.
The fisherman is a natural story teller.
No man's imagination plays more
pranks than his, while he is tending
his reels and trotting from one
to another, or watching his cork
in summer. He is ever waiting for
the sky to fall. He has sent out a
venture. He has a ticket in the
lottery of fate, and who knows what
it may draw? He ever expects to
catch a bigger fish yet.
He is the most patient and
believing of men [or women!].
Who else will stand so long in
wet places? When the hay maker
runs to shelter, he takes down his
pole and bends his steps to the river,
glad to have a leisure day.
He [or she] is more like an
inhabitant of nature.
The weather concerns him. He is
an observer of her phenomenona.
*
Henry David Thoreau
The River
