And so also has the young man who falls
into the same error. I hardly know to which such phase of
character may be most injurious. It is a pernicious vice, that of
succumbing to the beast that carries you, and making yourself, as
it were, his servant, instead of keeping him ever as yours. I
will not deny that I have known a lady to fall into this vice
from hunting; but so also have I known ladies to marry their
music-masters and to fall in love with their footmen. But not on
that account are we to have no music-masters and no footmen.
Let the hunting lady, however, avoid any touch of this blemish,
remembering that no man ever likes a woman to know as much about
a horse as he thinks he knows himself.
THE HUNTING FARMER.
Few hunting men calculate how much they owe to the hunting
farmer, or recognize the fact that hunting farmers contribute
more than any other class of sportsmen towards the maintenance of
the sport. It is hardly too much to say that hunting would be
impossible if farmers did not hunt. If they were inimical to
hunting, and men so closely concerned must be friends or
enemies, there would be no foxes left alive; and no fox, if
alive, could be kept above ground. Fences would be impracticable,
and damages would be ruinous; and any attempt to maintain the
institution of hunting would be a long warfare in which the
opposing farmer would certainly be the ultimate conqueror.
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