Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

452 CHINESE FISHINGparallels—but of his Angling is morally edifying, piscatoriallyinstructive, and is possibly responsible for the rise in GreatBritain and America of the barbless school of anglers. Asyet its pupils, despite the missionary zeal of Mr, Rhead, arescattered few and far between. The hmitation of theirnumbers can doubtless be ascribed to their introspective andbecoming fear lest the " real attraction," which, according toa Chinese classic, was in our hero's case not his straight ironbut his innate virtue,should with them, either from sparsityor lowness of power, lack the requisite magnetism !But retournons a nos poissons !King Wen, the founder ofthe Chou Dynasty, and one of the great sages—whence, perhaps,his intelligent annexation of Chiang, for all Anglers ex necessitateare, or should be, also sages—comes across our hero fishing witha piece of straight iron instead of a barbed hook. This tackle,he explains to the unrecognised monarch, is based on principlesdear to our Conscientious Objectors, viz. voluntaryism — " foronly volunteers would suffer themselves to be caught thuswise" —and of mercy — " since it gave all those who wished achance of escape."Wen, from his many campaigns, observed much and missedlittle. He noticed the full creel. Thence, as a Sage would,deduced that since a virtuous man's wants are always satisfied,Chiang must be just such a man. He felt instinctively thathere indeed was the statesman whom hisgrandsire—observethe ancestor-reverence !—would have selected. So withoutmore ado or any references as to character. Wen carried Chiangoff, whether with or without the full creel history deigns noword, to his palace, installed him as Viceroy, and ever aftertermed him " my Grandfather's Desire," a sobriquet which,however well meant, our philosophic piscator—he was onlyeighty when caught straight-ironing—must at times haveresented. ^Not dissimilar in method if unlike in emolument, standsout the historical (for he shone in the eighth century a.d.)Chang Chih-ho, that " ghttering example of humorous romanticdetachment and carelessness of public opinion, who spent his* See H. A. Giles, Chinese Biographical Did., 1898, p. 135, No. 343.