I shall stay him no longer than to wish him a rainy evening to read this following discourse; and that if he be an honest angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a fishing.
Sir Henry Wotton was a most dear lover and a frequent practiser of the Art of Angling; of which he would say, “’T was an employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness;” and “that it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and practised it.”
I remember that a wise friend of mine did usually say, “That which is everybody’s business is nobody’s business.”
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. ii.
Note 1. Virtue is her own reward.—John Dryden: Tyrannic Love, act iii. sc. 1.
Virtue is to herself the best reward.—Henry More: Cupid’s Conflict.
Virtue is its own reward.—Matthew Prior: Imitations of Horace, book iii. ode 2.John Gay: Epistle to Methuen. Home: Douglas, act iii. sc. 1.
Virtue was sufficient of herself for happiness.—Diogenes Laertius: Plato, xlii.
Ipsa quidem virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces (Virtue herself is her own fairest reward).—Silius Italicus (25?–99): Punica, lib. xiii. line 663. [back]
