The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: references to other writers, as early as the author of the Book of
Job, and as late as John Dennys, who betrayed to the world THE
SECRETS OF ANGLING in 1613. Walton further seasoned his book with
fragments of information about fish and fishing, more or less
apocryphal, gathered from Aelian, Pliny, Plutarch, Sir Francis
Bacon, Dubravius, Gesner, Rondeletius, the learned Aldrovandus, the
venerable Bede, the divine Du Bartas, and many others. He borrowed
freely for the adornment of his discourse, and did not scorn to make
use of what may he called LIVE QUOTATIONS,--that is to say, the
unpublished remarks of his near contemporaries, caught in friendly
conversation, or handed down by oral tradition.
|