The Compleat Angler

Wuar new thing can be said about Izaak Walton or his fishing book at the present time? Why is the book still read? Because people want to read it. To the ordinary Englishman the word ‘classic’ has a slightly chilling significance. During the process called education he has too often been bored by ‘ classics,’ usually in those languages called dead. The fruits of the minds of rare men were offered to the immature consciousness. Offered? Well, as our brother of the angle offered his barbed hook to the frog. The frog accepted the offer; and possibly in a Ranine Paradise he forgot the exactitude of the experience, and declared that it made a frog of him. À classic is usually a work of art that is read from one age to another; and, in its proper function, it is read by those who want to read it, willingly, for one of various reasons. While there are fish in England there will be men who dream