THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 39 



London to York, or any other feat of endurance. When 

 I say '' blood will tell/' it is because from high breeding- 

 descends a larger share of what is technically termed 

 " pluck ;" because there is a never-yielding sphit, an 

 animus infused through the veins, which has given rise 

 to the saying, with regard to horses, that an ounce of 

 blood is worth a pound of bone. This principle may be 

 fairly extended and carried out in reference to human 

 nature. However independent the mind is of the body 

 the mind is the essence of being, — the life, the soul ; and 

 will support, in a manner truly wonderful (and admirable, 

 indeed, as the greatest of the great Creator's works), a 

 frame bearing no proportion to the mighty spirit by 

 which it is animated. If we have, in the present time, 

 degenerated in outward form from those in the days of 

 our ancestors, whose 



" Pillow was buckler, cold and hard, 

 Who carved at the meal 

 With gloves of steel. 

 And drank the red wine through the helmet barred ; 



there is still the same chivalrous feeling to nerve the 

 body to deeds of high daring. It may be said by my 

 readers, that I am given to military simile ; and I admit 

 my fondness for the analogy, — a pride in the comparison 

 between deeds of heroism and fox-hunting ; and I 

 cannot refrain from noticing the well-known opinion of 

 that great chieftain, to whom many, happily, like myself, 

 look up as to a demi-god, and who is, by-the-way, himself 

 devoted to fox-hunting, that, amongst all his ofl&cers in 



