ANTHONY TROLLOPE. l6r 



think, be accorded to me by Essex men oenerally that I 

 have ridden hard. The cause of my dehi^ht in the amuse- 

 ment I have never been able to analyse to my own satis- 

 faction. In the first place, even now, I know very little 

 about huntiiiLj — though I know very much of the ac- 

 cessories of the field. I am too blind to see hounds turn- 

 ing, and cannot therefore tell whether the fox has gone this 

 way or that. Indeed, all the notice I take of hounds is not 

 to ride over them. My eyes are so constituted that I can 

 never see the nature of a fence. 1 either follow someone, 

 or ride at it with the full conviction that I mav be goino- 

 into a horse-pond or a gravel-pit. I have jumped into 

 both one and the other. I am very heavy, and have never 

 ridden expensive horses. I am also now old for such 

 work, being so stiff that I cannot get on to my horse with- 

 out the aid of a block or a bank. But I ride still after the 

 the same fashion, with a boy's energy, determined to get 

 ahead, if it may possibly be done, hating the roads, 

 despising young men who ride them, and with a feeling 

 that life cannot, with all her riches, have given me any- 

 thing better than when I have gone through a long run to 

 the finish, keeping a place, not of glory, but of credit, 

 among my juniors." 



TroIIope was perfecdy fearless ; Ijiit his defective 



II 



